


talking is what we do to each other with words (but baby we don't talk)

by teacupsandsheepskulls



Series: baby we don't talk (about the things you do when you mean to say i love you) [1]
Category: The Fugitive (Movies)
Genre: Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandsheepskulls/pseuds/teacupsandsheepskulls
Summary: Sam has been discreet for a long time. He can almost convince himself he’s comfortable, if not happy (he’s an excellent liar). He can almost convince himself it’s enough (until life proves it’s not).Or: John Royce isn’t a traitor but an FBI agent hunting for the man who killed his ex-lover (still a little shit though), Sam Gerard deserves nice things (John Royce is a nice thing), Cosmo Renfro is the best bro (because Sam deserves nice things), Poole ships it (and makes popcorn), and the author sat down to write a quick fic about Sam having some fun because Royce is pretty (and then John Royce cartwheeled in shouting CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT).
Relationships: Samuel Gerard/John Royce
Series: baby we don't talk (about the things you do when you mean to say i love you) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1763008
Kudos: 8





	talking is what we do to each other with words (but baby we don't talk)

**Author's Note:**

> Title derived from a film professor who was approximately as old as dirt and would commence every single class by gathering his students in his living room with a shot of absinthe apiece and the sentence, “Dialogue is what characters do to each other with words.”
> 
> If you’ve read x_art’s The Hunter from the Field, you may notice some striking similarities. It’s my favorite fic of all time, so my first fic is very much inspired by it (spoilers: the scene in the Hilton is directly drawn from a similar one in that fic which is more graceful and understated than I could ever manage, also the idea of Friday dinners and much of Sam’s baseline characterization originated there). Also, “Queer Marshals don’t get promoted,” came from amaruuk’s masterful, amazing Winter’s End, because if that’s not Sam Gerard in a sentence, I don’t know what is. Read them, love x_art and amaruuk for their talents, and forgive me my begging, borrowing, and stealing.

The first thing Sam thinks when he meets Special Agent John Royce is that he's going to be a pain in the ass. The second is that Royce is pretty.

It's an unhelpful thought, given that he was soaked to the bone ten minutes ago. Nor does it help his mood, given that Royce's boss has just gift-wrapped the kid and dropped him in Sam's lap with a bow provided by Walsh. As if Sam doesn't have a fugitive with a significant head start and a larger than usual collection of useless idiots standing in his way. The last thing he needs is the FBI's help, and certainly not the help of Special Agent Royce.

"If it's any consolation," Royce says, the helicopter buffeting his tie, "I wouldn't like me either." He slips his sunglasses into his pocket, and the thought springs forward again. Royce's eyes are brown like old oak trees, dark and serious and at odds with his apparently irresistible impulse to dig his elbows further into Sam's side.

"No, it's not any consolation," Sam snaps. He's at least ten hours too tired to afford this lack of focus and ten years too old to be this distracted by a pretty face. Still, he spares Royce a closer look. There's an earnestness there that surprises him, a subdued eagerness in the forward tilt of his shoulders, like he's waiting to spring into something. Sam sighs. "How'd you pull this duty?"

"Bastard killed two of my friends. I volunteered."

It's the truth, though Sam has an inkling it's not the whole one. Still. He's got a fugitive to catch and he doesn't know yet whether he can afford to bully the truth out of Royce. "You ever made a fugitive arrest before?"

"No. Planning to shortly."

"You have a weapon?"

"Yeah, a big one. You?"

Sam can hear Cosmo snickering. He's one innuendo away from throwing Royce headlong at the helicopter, politics be damned. "You sure you want to get cute with me?"

The smirk says Royce would very much like to get cute, but enough of Sam's irritation shows through that Royce pulls out his gun instead. Nickel-plated Taurus PT945 .45 caliber. A fine enough gun, as long as Royce doesn't plan to get in the mud with it. Sam says as much and tells him to get a Glock, hoping they won't be stuck with Royce long enough for Royce to have time for the acquisition. He barks out orders to set Poole, Henry, and Cosmo in motion, bringing Newman with him. Behind his back, he hears Newman inform Royce, "I think he likes you," and thinks with only a hint of despair that if he does like Royce, it's entirely against his better judgement.

Royce proves to be as much of a pain in the ass as Sam suspected. He's also useful. Sam throws him at Poole and Henry half out of spite, but Royce sheds his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves, supplementing whatever information Poole digs up with what he knows from experience and from FBI files. He glances at the folders Lamb left for them, mutters something colorful, and gets on the phone to have a spirited argument with someone named Diane at the office to send over files they can actually do something with.

Their man, Royce explains between bickering with Diane and Biggs in turn, is former Special Agent Mark Sheridan of the New York FBI. He vanished into thin air three weeks prior after shooting and killing two agents, Daniel Ward and Colleen Romero, only to surface again as a tow truck driver named Mark Roberts in Chicago. Romero lived long enough to warn Lamb, but by the time they caught up, Sheridan was in the wind. Smart, efficient, aware of how to hunt someone on the run, and brutal enough to shoot two of his former colleagues when he realized they were about to open an investigation into him for questionable dealings with the Chinese mob.

"Statistically," Royce says, squinting at the map, "he'll head north towards the closest major city, which is St. Louis."

 _Statistically._ Only agents green in field work hunt with statistics. "You just said he was smart," Sam says, shooing Cosmo to get on the radio and move the perimeter 20 miles south.

"Which is why he'll rely on you being stupid," Royce returns levelly. "My money's on him heading south into Kentucky. But he'll lay low and let the heat die down as much as he can first, try and catch the search parties with their pants down while you burn through your resources in the first 48 hours."

"Good thing we're not stupid," Biggs calls from across the room, tangled in maps. "Hey, anybody got Clark Kent's number so we can get a map of Metropolis from after the 60s?" Poole tells him to shut up while Sam goes in search of coffee. It's paving tar and is an excellent complement to the cheap doughnut Newman drops into his hand. Even with Royce in the way, the fugitive hunt is livening him again in the way no amount of caffeine can.

Unfortunately, Royce is right--Sheridan is smart, and he does lay low. The day bleeds into night before they have time to staunch it, which Sam only notices after the second time Cosmo startles him awake on the counter of Roy Willy's. Sheriff Poe is hovering in Sam's periphery, saying something that doesn't register as English.

"Sammy? You listening?"

There might be some energy in his toes, if he can focus on pulling it upward. The adrenaline from the plane crash vanished with the last rays of the sun. Apparently he lost more of his nine lives in the river than he thought. "Only if you're saying something worth hearing."

"You're dead on your feet, Sam." He taps Sam's shoulder to get his attention. "We got a motel room set up. Go get some sleep. We'll knock if we got anything."

"I'll bring you the rest of the files once I have them." Royce, from the corner of the room, where he's doing war with a fax machine from the Stone Ages. 

"I'll be sure not to answer," Sam says, though he's not sure who he's answering. He doesn't remember getting to the motel room or showering off the river when he gets that far, just that he wakes up in the middle of the night to find he slept for a surprising number of hours. Equally surprising is the fact that no one woke him.

The second day is much slower than the first, even with Sam's renewed energy. Sheridan is as smart as Royce warned. A shoe turns up from dogs searching about five miles out of Metropolis, but the trail goes quiet again after that flurry of activity. The difference, now that Sam's back to his wits enough to notice it, is Royce.

He's shed his New York suit in favor of a worn-in blue collared shirt and slacks that have lived in the bottom of a bag too long to be called office attire. Without the suit weighing him down, Royce moves with a steady assurance that belies his lack of experience with fugitive hunts. Poole apparently hasn't forgotten his snark with Sam yesterday and seems to relish tossing menial tasks in his path. Royce catches each of them gamely, handling them with equal grace. Yet his attention remains fixed on Sam.

Sam doesn't Royce much mind at first, directing his mind toward his actual task (Mark Sheridan) with the people who actually work for him. Royce appears at his elbow to talk him through the meager files he surfaced from battle with Diane and the fax machine sometime last night, providing side commentary to match Cosmo's side commentary. And somehow, he doesn't quite leave Sam's elbow. It isn't that he's in Sam's space, or even that he's always looking in Sam's direction. It's that Royce's attention is always split between his task and Sam, an unwanted moon in orbit of Sam's gravitational field. Nor does it help that his sharp elbows are apparently a natural character trait, or that it's slow enough in the lull for Sam to consider what Royce is after.

Slow enough, even, that Sam has time to quietly observe Royce back, and allow himself to muse in the part of his mind not occupied by his fugitive.

Royce is pretty. He's also enough of a pain in the ass that he might be genuinely interesting, at least in the few days Sam's likely to be stuck with him. Of course, he also can't be less than fifteen years Sam's junior, probably closer to eighteen, which would make him somewhere in his very early thirties, right on thirty if Sam was pressed to guess. Not quite young enough to be Sam's son, but young enough to make the math worth counting.

In another life, maybe twenty years ago, Sam might have considered having a bit of fun with him, if only to lessen the irritation of his presence. And even now, unlike other men Sam's taken note of in Chicago, Royce comes with the clear benefit of an expiration date and a job in New York, where he will vanish with Sheridan in tow, unlikely to cause Sam any future headaches in his own backyard.

But this isn't twenty years ago. And while Sam is steadier in himself than he was twenty years ago, he's also smarter. He hasn't been this discreet for this long to get raked over the coals for making a move on a straight man almost young enough to be his son. Even Walsh, who has enough sense of Sam's secrets not to ask about them, has limited patience. Especially when they have a former FBI agent on the run for murder. So Sam will content himself with observing, and with the small victory of not shooting Royce.

And if he files away details of Royce for his future imagination to run with, well. That's nobody's business but his own.

The bigger problem is that he can't quite discern what Royce wants, from Sam or the Sheridan case. He moves through their work space like he's itching to break into a proper run, or to shoot something. His Taurus remains holstered, though Sam suspects that's because there's nothing to shoot rather than Royce following Sam's instructions to keep it in his suit unless told otherwise. Lamb wasn't lying when he said Royce was one of his best men--Sam might even learn to tolerate the FBI if they get in the habit of volunteering agents like Royce. Then again, he'd bet his badge Lamb didn't volunteer Royce of his own volition, but rather because Royce wouldn't let him volunteer anyone else.

The slow trickle of FBI files on Sheridan confirms the theory. Lamb is actively resistant, and every successive phone call to his home office incenses Royce further.

"Do you want me to do my damn job or not? Sir." The "sir" is an afterthought. Royce notices the rest of the room a little too studiously involved in their own work and lowers his voice. "I'm here to help catch the bastard, sir, not fold our laundry. Either send the files or send the files. I'll call Sheppard if I need to." Sam doesn't need to be on the phone to hear Lamb fuming. Naturally, he can't be rid of Royce that easily. "Yes, sir. Much obliged, sir." Royce still hangs up the phone with a bit more force than necessary.

Sam returns to his map well before Royce glances his way. Sheridan did a bit more than kill two of Royce's friends, Sam is sure, or else Royce wouldn't be so willing to burn bridges back home that Sam suspects he can't afford to lose. But Sam is neither his boss nor his friend, and Royce's sloppy politics to get the Sheridan files are no concern of Sam's so long as the files end up in front of him. The bigger problem is why Royce is so willing to burn them, how much of a liability that makes him when he inevitably crosses paths with Mark Sheridan, and how much paperwork it's going to cost Sam.

Christ, he hates joint jurisdiction hunts.

Sheridan remains irritatingly clever well into the second evening, and Lamb doesn't send the rest of the files until he has no other choice. They take shifts to retreat to the motel and shower, as though Sheridan will spring from the bushes the moment one of them sets foot in the john. That, at least, would be fun. But Sheridan is clever enough to deny Sam any fun, until he has no choice but to give in and take his brief and unwanted respite at the motel. He showers without interest and sleeps little at all, rotating the problem of Mark Sheridan in his head alongside his maps and perimeters and search parties.

He's about to call Cosmo and check on the state of their runaway when a knock on the door reminds him why he actually woke up. Sadly, it's not Cosmo but Royce, holding up a bottle of whiskey, two cups and, at long last, the complete files on Mark Sheridan. "Sorry to wake you," Royce says, not sounding entirely sorry.

"You didn't." The yellow motel light washes out Royce's face, turning his blue shirt a sallow gray. "Those have anything worth reading?"

"A line or two. Figured you'd want to read them more than sleep." Royce salutes with the Styrofoam cups. "These are for reading."

Sam does not comment that Royce could have left them at Roy Willy's with the rest of his team, nor does he remind Royce that his motel room has a functioning phone. Instead, he turns back into the room and pads to the small table in the corner, leaving the door open for Royce to follow. He takes the whiskey from Royce's hand and pours it himself while Royce lays out the files, no more than a gulp or two apiece before tucking the bottle away. It's both a peace offering and a time limit. And a silent refusal, to himself at least, to do anything more stupid than two gulps of whiskey will allow.

Royce explains the contents of the files, skipping past the redacted parts. Sam drills him on finer details and is summarily rewarded. It takes about an hour and a swill of whiskey apiece, and by the time they're slowing down Sam isn't any calmer for it. They know more about who Mark Sheridan is, but this doesn't tell them more about where he's likely to surface.

The files aren't the reason Royce is here. He's watching Sam as he has been all day. Sam feels the same thrum of tension he does at the start of a chase, only this time, he's not hunting a fugitive.

He leans back in his chair, casual-like, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose to soothe the headache he's sure to have when this is over. "Thanks for bringing these," he says, still looking at the files even though he's no longer seeing them.

Royce nods once, toying with his cup in one hand. "Glad to."

"You could have called to tell me this."

Royce nods again, not as loose this time. "I could have."

Sam lowers his hand from his face and cuts a look at Royce, who is deliberately not noticing. He tries another hook, just to see if he gets a bite. "I'll take these back so you can sleep for a few hours."

Royce hums, still toying with his cup. "You don't need to yet."

 _So that's how it is_. Sam doesn't let himself react. He waits a beat, then, "Why are you here?"

Royce huffs, glancing at Sam only to look back at his whiskey as soon as he lands on Sam's face. "I told you. To catch the man who killed two of my friends."

"That's not what I asked. But we can start there, if you'd like."

Royce's eyes are lively when he looks up at Sam. He's enjoying this, tiptoeing right on the edge, egging Sam on. His brows go up, an invitation.

"You may be here to hunt Sheridan for killing your friends," Sam says, "but that's not the whole truth. You're lying to me, but I'm not sure about which part." He leans forward on his elbows, smooth as a coiled spring. "I get cranky when people lie to me. And you won't like that, Agent Royce."

There's a hint of the smirk Royce had before he showed Sam his Taurus, but something else too. Royce drops his gaze back to his cup, but that something lingers. He’s afraid, Sam thinks, though he’s not sure if Royce is afraid of _him._ Then, after a beat, Royce comes to a decision.

"I was sleeping with Daniel Ward for three years," he says, as though commenting on the weather, swirling his whiskey in a lazy circle. "Sheridan guessed after it was over and threatened to expose Daniel when he found out there would be an investigation into him. When scaring him didn't work, Sheridan shot him. Agent Romero was the only other person who had the notes on Sheridan." He's too controlled to be as calm as he pretends, studying Sam's reaction even as he watches the whiskey settle in his cup.

Sam waits, still as a stone.

After a moment Royce looks up again, meeting Sam's gaze with one brow arched in challenge. "You don't approve?"

Sam disapproves of the sloppiness, but then, he too was young and stupid once, if not quite that young or that stupid. "I disapprove of revenge."

"You think that's what I'm doing?"

"Isn't it?"

"No."

 _Liar_ , Sam thinks, but chooses a different pain point instead. "So you're here to clean up your mess?"

"No," Royce snaps, with more vehemence this time. Sam's not sure which part he's trying to prove. "Sheridan didn't have anything but hearsay, and weak hearsay at that. That's why scaring Daniel didn't work."

Daniel again. Not Ward. Too personal for it to be quite as over as he would have Sam believe by glossing over it. "A suicide mission, then?"

Royce starts to answer but stops, tilting his head and leaning back in his chair. He's just figured out that Sam's tapping him with a cattle prod. "I'm here to catch a man who murdered two FBI agents. Nothing more." _Liar_ , Sam thinks again, but Royce speaks before he can. "You didn't answer my question."

Sam hums, settling into his poker face. "Which one?"

"Whether you disapprove of my sleeping with Agent Ward."

 _Clever,_ a pleased voice purrs in the back of Sam's brain. Royce would be fun, more fun than Sam's had in years. If this weren't already such a godforsaken catastrophe.

He waits, but this time so does Royce. Several beats pass. When it's clear Royce isn't going to give up, Sam weighs his options. He can't let Royce catch him in a lie, not when Royce is paying this much attention, not when Royce knows Sam has been paying attention all day, not when he has to deal with Royce in the morning. But he also needs Royce to give up. Finally, he fixes Royce with a flat look. "Queer Marshals don't get promoted."

Royce studies him with the same seriousness he turned on the maps and case files, as if he knows Sam used a simple statement for an unsimple collection of puzzle pieces, as though Sam is a puzzle he's eager to solve. "Does that mean you're not queer, or that you pretend?"

Sam takes a long slow pull of the whiskey. It burns the whole way down his throat. He could end this game right now. Could lie, now that he's taunted Royce with an almost-taste of the truth. It would be safer that way, and ensure Royce never mentions tonight again. But instead, he hears himself say, "Neither. It means I'm discreet."

Royce smirks. "Luckily for you, so am I."

Sam taps a fingernail on the files, right where Mark Sheridan looks on. "Sheridan says otherwise."

It's a well-aimed river stone, but Royce doesn't flinch when it sinks. "Sheridan is on the run for murder and will return to New York a cop killer. He didn't have anything before, and anything he brought up now would just sound desperate."

"Did you love Daniel?" Sam asks, cool and quiet as a scalpel whispering through the air.

Royce clearly didn't expect the question, but he marshals fast enough to surprise Sam. "Yes." He's braver than Sam thought. "At one point I loved him very much."

"Then you shouldn't have gotten caught," Sam replies, letting the sentence cut deep and fast. "And you shouldn't be looking to bury his ghost in a shallow grave with Sheridan."

"I'm not here to kill Mark Sheridan."

Sam snorts. "Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?" He tosses down the last of his whiskey, wishing he had the freedom to reopen the bottle. Alas, Mark Sheridan. He stands, rolling his shoulders loose again. "It's your shift. Get some sleep, or don't. Just don't get in the way when you get back." He starts to collect the files, only to find a hand on his shoulder. He looks up just as Royce pulls him upright and around, and then John Royce is kissing him.

Sam has a split second to be surprised, then draws on the well of stillness in his chest and doesn't respond.

It feels long but isn't. Royce pulls away and Sam lets him, looking him dead in the face with his years of discretion forming a black wall in his eyes. "I won't capitalize on your grief," Sam says, quiet as he was before, "and fucking me or killing Sheridan won't bring back Daniel Ward. Mourn him, or don't. That's not my concern." He steps forward into Royce's space as Royce takes a half step back, running into the edge of the bed. "But I'm not Daniel Ward, and you're not going to get in my way. Clear?"

Royce's old oak eyes flicker all over Sam's face. He draws a deep breath. Then nods.

"Good." Sam steps away, not watching Royce relax while he gathers the files in one pile in his arm. "It's your turn to sleep. See you in a few hours." And with that he steps into the muggy Tennessee night. He does not look back at John Royce.

The next morning, they catch a break. An eighteen-wheeler rammed a roadblock, going headlong into the swamps. Sheridan disembarked into the swamp, plus one shotgun with twelve rounds. Sam should feel worse about the sensation that he can finally breathe again, given that someone is probably badly injured.

He's avoided Royce all morning, but there's no time to do so as they pile into an SUV and barrel for the swamps. When he gets out, he sees light with a different focus in Royce's countenance. Now that Sheridan is within his grasp, Royce won't be sidetracked by Sam anymore. That makes him both more likely to catch Sheridan and more likely to do something stupid when he does.

But Sam can't keep him back. Not in front of his kids and the local cops and onlooking hillbillies, not without giving a reason. Not without saying what he knows from last night. Sam is many things, but he's not that kind of bastard. He sighs and steels himself, laying out the plan.

"If you see him, use your flares. No one," Sam's eyes pass over Royce like the shadow of a hawk over a sparrow, "goes after him alone. Or else I'll shoot you myself. Got it?"

He gets uniform sounds of assent, and with that they're off. Sam is in his element and humming with the hunt, moving slowly through the muggy air and muddy water of the swamps. The only thought Sam has, besides scanning for Sheridan, is the hope that Royce doesn't find him first.

He has a brief moment of relief when a flare goes up, but confirmation from his kids kills it. Of course it's Royce. Sam is closer than any of them and makes a beeline as fast as the motor would allow, springing out of the boat to the spongy ground and snarling " _Stay_ ," when his boatman attempts to follow. Then he's in the woods, shouting for Royce.

He doesn't need to go far to find them. Sheridan is covered in swamp muck and has the shotgun in his hands, but it's not raised. Royce's Taurus, however, is leveled straight at Sheridan's forehead, his entire body a clenched fist around the trigger. Sam doesn't have time to look at his face. Instead, he raises his Glock at Sheridan, snapping for him to drop the gun.

Sheridan doesn't take his eyes off Royce. There's a mean smile carving his face. He might not have more than hearsay, but Royce standing in front of a Deputy Marshal itching to shoot him in cold blood is confirmation enough. _Sonofabitch_. "Put it down, Sheridan!" Sam snaps again.

Sheridan laughs in his throat. "What, so he can shoot me?"

"Either he's going to shoot you or I am. You're not fast enough to kill both of us." When Sheridan makes no move, Sam changes his tactic. His kids will show up any second, and this will only get worse for Royce if they see him shoot Sheridan when Sheridan is clearly outgunned. "He's not worth it, Royce." A muscle works in Royce's jaw, but he's not lowering his gun either. "You think Daniel Ward would want you to rot in prison instead of his killer?"

Royce stifles a flinch, and that gets Sheridan's attention. His smile widens into something made for tearing throats out. "You know?" He says, barking a laugh at the fear that seeps into Royce's eyes. "You know about him and Ward?"

There are boat motors closing in, his kids shouting for them. Royce adjusts his grip. Sam has about twenty seconds before this goes south. " _Royce!_ " he snarls.

It happens in the span of seconds. Sheridan twitches his shotgun up. Sam dives for him at the same moment Royce fires, barreling his shoulder into Sheridan the second after Sheridan grunts in pain. Then they're both on the ground in the mud, Sam kicking both guns away with one foot while he twists Sheridan's arm behind his back. Sheridan shouts in pain this time, blood seeping through his shirt--Royce shot him in the shoulder. Sam angles himself between Sheridan and Royce as he cuffs Sheridan's hands. Then he looks up to see Royce staring at him, gun still leveled at Sheridan.

"It's over, Royce. Put it down."

Royce blinks as if coming out of a trance and lowers his gun just as Sam's kids barrel in, guns up. "Sammy!" Cosmo shouts.

"We're fine, Cosmo! Don't shoot," Sam shouts back, pulling Sheridan to his feet with him.

Then it really is over. A swarm of people descends as soon as they haul Sheridan back out of the swamp. Sam deposits Sheridan in a cruiser to be inspected by an EMT, waving off any offers to inspect him too. His kids are dealing with the local police, getting them to move before news crews make it out, and there's paperwork to be done and boxes to be checked to get Sheridan back to New York.

But for now, at least, they got their man, and no one else is dead. Sam steps away and takes a moment to breathe before he turns his attention to what waits for him.

"Hey, Gerard?" He turns to Royce, whose face is more open than Sam's seen in three days, and Sam knows it will be gone as soon as he turns away. "Thanks. For everything."

Sam lets a small but real smile filter through as he pats Royce on the shoulder. "Don't mention it."

Royce chuckles, a warm, soft sound. He'll be alright, Sam knows, whatever waits for him in New York. "Catch you around sometime, Deputy Gerard."

Sam grins with too many teeth. "Not if I catch you first, Agent Royce."

Royce laughs for real this time.

They linger a day longer to sort out the details and deal with the press. The Marshals Service is applauded for Mark Sheridan's swift capture, and there's just enough good press going around for the FBI to recover some of its good reputation on the basis of Royce's role in apprehending Sheridan. But in the end, Sam and his kids are on a plane back to Chicago after bidding Royce a friendly goodbye.

And that, Sam assumes, is that. He returns to find his apartment recently cleaned by his cleaning lady and a pile of mail waiting for him and the clear thought that he's probably never going to see John Royce again. He's fine with that, he tells himself. It's easier that way. The better to avoid complications for Sam in Chicago, the better to let Royce sort out his grief for Daniel Ward in New York, the better for both of them to get away clean, without feelings or bad decisions that come with the high after a hunt. Sam is fine with that.

He still pours a stiff drink before he goes to bed that night, wondering whether Royce has made it back to New York.

Life returns to normal with startling finality. Capturing Sheridan for the FBI won him back some of the good graces he'd lost with Walsh before this mess started and she lets him get away with ignoring her when she suggests a vacation. The last thing Sam wants is to fester at home with the taste of the Sheridan case in his mouth. He throws himself back into work with abandon, relieved for the distraction.

Almost a month passes like that. Then another. Two slow months, at that, like molasses in his brain.

He doesn't need to be at the office as much as he is, but with fall bleeding into winter, it's too cold to justify whiling his hours outside. Or, at least, enough hours on activities other than running, now that most outdoor events have shuttered or moved indoors, and his knees will only forgive him for so much marathon training. And indoors, the kitchen isn't enough to keep his attention occupied. Walsh goes through cursory gripes about Sam sleeping in his own damn home instead of under his desk, but she can't argue with the results.

Even so, Sam is in a mood. It takes him a week too long and Cosmo muttering about it for him to catch on. Another two days more to admit he's been in a mood since Tennessee. He tries catching a drink with Cosmo but finds they can't talk about anything but this week's prison plans. He accepts an invitation to watch some game at Henry’s, to watch without interest as their team loses spectacularly. Poole and her husband host everyone for dinner one week and Sam remains quiet in the background, working on his drink while his kids chatter. He's itching for something, though he's not quite sure what, and he can't get rid of the excess, no matter how much dedication he pours into his work.

So when the sleep he wasn’t getting is interrupted in the wee hours of Thursday morning with news of a prison bus derailing a train, he's not at all sorry for the disruption.

His kids, on the other hand, are a different story. "Is it possible to have a train crash not at ass o'clock in the morning?" Cosmo gripes as they unload from the car.

"Don't like the challenge, Renfro?" Biggs says.

"No, I don't like the damn mess."

 _And ain't it just a mess_ , Sam thinks. Worse, the news crews are already here. He sees Poole shuffling through the branches and mutters, "Poole, I thought I told you not to wear the heels?"

Poole, all of five-foot-five in her one-inch heels, gives a long-suffering sigh. "Yeah, well. Next train crash, Sam."

"After this train crash, I'm dragging you to a damn shoe store."

"After this train crash, I'm taking a damn vacation," Poole replies.

“Remind me again why we’re always mother henning her?” Henry says.

“It’s how we show affection,” Biggs says, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

Sam stifles a grin as they flash their badges at a harried sheriff's deputy. The kids stride as one toward the wreckage, except for Poole, who is right on his heels. Sheriff Rawlins, in his infinite wisdom, is interviewing a surviving guard in full view of TV cameras. It is entirely too early in the morning for this.

"Excuse me, Sheriff Rawlins?" Sam calls, letting the Marshal authority ring loud and clear in his voice as he shoulders through the small crowd. Poole appears at the Sheriff's other side. "Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard."

"I'll be with you in just a moment," Sheriff Rawlins says, barely sparing Sam a glance. Sam can already tell he's going to despise the man. He's then treated to the tail end of the guard's story, some fresh bullshit about his partner doing the same for him. So that was what stunk when they got out of the car.

The sheriff, to his discredit, is gobbling it up hook, line, and sinker. "You're very brave, sir." The glance at the news cameras gives him away. That kind of slimy bastard then. Fantastic. "How about these two?"

He holds up two photos, which the guard barely inspects before shaking his head. "It's a bit of a blur but...no, no I don't think they made it."

Enough is enough. There's time wasting that he can't afford to burn getting the guard's real story. "Sheriff Rawlins, with all due respect, I'd like to suggest check points on a 15 mile radius out here on I-57, I-24 and on route 13 out of Chester."

"Deputy Gerard," Sheriff Rawlins says, as if placating a fussy child. "The prisoners are all dead and the only thing checkpoints are gonna do is get a lot of good people frantic around here and flood my office with calls."

It's not the words that irk Sam. It's the patronizing tone of this weasel wearing a sheriff's star like he has any right to it. And even at ungodly hours, Sam has to take his small pleasures. "Well shit, sheriff, I'd hate to see that happen," Sam says, dry as Texas rocks in the sun, "so I guess I'll just take over your investigation."

Sheriff Rawlins clearly wasn't expecting a fight and puffs up like a wet cat. "On what authority?"

"Governor of the state of Illinois," Sam replies, stifling a yawn. "United States Marshals Office, 5th District Northern Illinois."

"Actually, Deputy, I think you'll find the FBI has jurisdiction over this one." He turns around to see none other than Special Agent John Royce, wearing a grin that can only be described as shit-eating.

 _Speak of the Devil and he shall appear_ , Sam thinks. Even though he has neither spoken nor thought of John Royce since returning from Tennessee. From the corner of his eye, Poole looks like her favorite program just came on. "And how do you figure that, Agent Royce?"

"Oh let's see," Royce squints at the papers in Sheriff Rawlins' hands, snatches one without regard for Rawlins' squawk of protest, and waves it in front of Sam, "for one, Jeremy Pulaski was being transported for trial on organized crime charges, to testify against the Gambino crime family in a federal case. That makes him FBI business."

"That's between Pulaski and the FBI," Sam says, snatching the paper and handing it to Poole to inspect while he flicks a nail on the other paper in Rawlins' hand. "But that's not true of Arthur Collins. And either way, fugitives are Marshals business. In case you'd forgotten, your boy Pulaski became a fugitive as soon as he fled the wreck."

"He's not my boy, Deputy, but the way I see it there's enough fugitives to go around." Royce doesn't quite purr, but it's a near thing. "Besides, more manpower means a shorter night for all of us, long as we don't step on each other's toes too hard."

Sam's mouth twitches against his will. Royce looks pleased. Poole looks tempted to flag Newman for popcorn. "We take Collins, you take Pulaski?"

"Now wait just a minute!" Ah, yes, the sheriff. Sam had almost forgotten him. "There's no reason for that. Nobody's taking jurisdiction. Your fugitives are roasting in the wreckage." Sheriff Rawlins is looking between Sam and Royce like he's not sure who to be exasperated with first.

Newman, blessed as ever with excellent timing, chooses that moment to appear with a pair of opened leg irons. An FBI agent jogs after him with a second set.

"You know," Sam says conversationally, taking the leg irons from Newman to dangle in front of the now nervous guard, "we're always fascinated to find leg irons with no legs in 'em." He turns to Royce. "And if memory serves, so's the FBI."

"Aren't we just?" Royce replies gamely, inspecting the guard like a particularly interesting bug he'd like to pin to a microscope slide.

Sam turns back to the guard, who's looking this side of frantic. "Who held the keys, sir?"

"I-I did," the guard says, looking between Sam and the leg irons like he's worried Sam's going to shackle him.

He might, if the guard proves particularly tiresome. "Where those keys at?"

The guard pauses. Sam can practically hear the gears whirling in his brain. Royce chimes in from his shoulder, "Irons have been unlocked, not broken," in a tone of clinical boredom.

The guard deflates. "I don't know."

"Care to revise your statement, sir?" Poole says. She's enjoying this, though not half as much as Sam. There's a reason she'll be a right terror of a Deputy Marshal someday soon, and it does Sam's heart good.

"W-what?"

"You want to change your bullshit story, sir?" Sam says, lower and more dangerous than Poole. Poole holds up the last two photos of Collins and Pulaski.

The guard eyes Sam. Royce sighs. "You know, I've got a perfectly good pair of cuffs itching to arrest someone for obstruction of justice."

He even reaches for them but, sadly, doesn't get a chance to use them before the guard's eyes widen and he blurts, _finally_ , "They mighta got out."

"They mighta got out," Sam mutters. He can feel as much as see Royce roll his eyes, but only in Sam's line of vision.

"What the hell is this?" Sheriff Rawlins, finally catching a damn clue. Sam's already had enough of him and it's barely been ten minutes. "A minute ago you said they were dead in the wreck and now they mighta got out?"

One thing at a time.

"Alright people," Sam shouts. Heads in every direction shoot to look at him. He can feel Royce right beside him, waiting, not quite close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. "Our fugitives have been on the run for ninety minutes. Average uninjured foot speed on uneven ground is four miles an hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from every one of you is a hard target search of every residence, farmhouse, warehouse, hen house, dog house, and outhouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. You find Arthur Collins, you come to me. You find Jeremy Pulaski, go to the FBI. Go get 'em."

He catches Sheriff Rawlins by the elbow but lets everyone else scurry, spooks Rawlins within an inch of his life to get rid of the damn cameras, and lets him bolt. Then there's a chirp from his other side. "Doghouse? Really? That part of the Big Dog routine?"

"Royce?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up." He eyes Royce, pulling forward his Big Dog menace into a mask. It is, after all, still ass o'clock in the morning and entirely too early for this kind of sass from someone who doesn't work for him. "You're not old enough or senior enough to be making the FBI's judgement calls."

"He's not, but if you really want that sorry SOB Collins, I'm not about to stop you," a voice interrupts, followed swiftly by a senior FBI agent who looks as tired as Sam's pretending not to be. By the glare he spares Royce, Sam suspects Royce is responsible for approximately half of it. "Deputy Gerard."

"Special Agent Perry," Sam replies. He remembers Perry--arrogant, but capable enough to earn about half of his arrogance. On a good day. "Your kids planning on getting in my way?"

"Not unless your kids plan on getting in mine." The tone says Perry remembers Sam and isn't happy about it.

 _Fair enough_. He turns away and hears Perry retreat back to his team, but Royce remains. "Renfro! We've got company."

Cosmo looks up, skims right over Perry, spots Royce, and crows in delight. "Ho-lee _shit_ , our least favorite FBI agent. Who the hell'd you drop-kick out of Manhattan now?"

"Nobody," Royce says, clearly pleased to be remembered. "My boss pulled the short straw to get Pulaski back."

" _Royce!_ " Perry roars from somewhere near the train. "You planning to make yourself useful sometime this year?"

"Yes sir, of course sir, right away sir," Royce chants, trotting in Perry's direction.

"Can we go home now?" Cosmo calls.

"No," Sam shouts. _My boss._ If memory serves, Perry's got nothing to do with New York, given how long he and the Chicago field office have been a thorn in Sam's side. Sam shakes his head. They've got a fugitive with a--he glances at his watch--hundred-minute head start.

By mutual agreement, the FBI and Marshals set up camp close to each other. Pulaski and Collins haven't made it far enough yet to warrant spreading apart, and in any case, they're still devoting enough attention to sorting the wreckage that they might as well shout at the same place. Perry makes a point of not engaging Sam, which Sam is fine with. The rest of Perry's team follows suit unless they find something the Marshals can use. Except, of course, Royce, who seems to enjoy shouting information to them a bit too much.

"We found a shoe six miles west," Royce calls from across the way.

"Good for you," Henry grumbles, fighting with a map.

"No, actually, good for you. It's Collins' shoe."

Sam gives Royce his least amused look. It's easy, given that no one's scared up coffee yet. "They were wearing prison-issue shoes from the same prison."

"Yep."

"You want to tell me you agents are so damn special you can tell my boy's shoe from your boy's shoe by looking at it?"

"No," Royce replies sunnily, leaving _you jackass_ barely unsaid, "by his shoe size. Pulaski's a size nine. Collins is a size eleven. This is two sizes too big for a nine. Which I was trying to--

"God _damm_ it," Sam growls. "Renfro!"

"What're you always yelling at me for?" Cosmo replies in indignation over the sound of Royce's amusement. "Why don't you yell at her? And shut up." He directs the last sentence at Royce, who isn't even pretending not to laugh.

It's a miracle Royce isn't a Marshal, or Sam would almost certainly have shot him by now.

It's only by virtue of having something better to do that Sam doesn't pitch Rawlins in the river within the first two hours, though Cosmo looks equally tempted. He does throw him at Agent Perry, whose aggrieved expression details exactly how grateful he is for that development. Fortunately for Perry, Pulaski is the stupid variety of criminal, which helps explain why he was in custody in the first place. He's spotted on the side of the highway even as Royce is ever-so-gently bullying a phone tap out of Judge Bennett. 

Fortunately for Sam, Royce saved him a fair amount of trouble in getting to Judge Bennett first, as Bennett grants his phone taps with an exasperated sigh of, "Don't they ever run during normal business hours?"

"I wouldn't know, ma'am," he replies, hanging up as soon as the warrants come through.

Collins, on the other hand, was smart enough to go in the opposite direction. Smarter still to call his ex-girlfriend to pick him up, leaving them to dredge up the make, model, and license of the girlfriend's car and where they've vanished. Within five minutes of that discovery, Perry's agents are radioing in--Pulaski, the stupid fugitive of the pair, is once more in federal custody.

"Thank God for that," Perry says. "Good work." Then he sets down the radio and turns to Sam with an appraising look. "We've just got our boy. If you want an assist cornering yours, we're already set up for it."

"Actually we've--" Cosmo starts, but Sam cuts him off.

"Long as you plan on being helpful." Cosmo is unsubtly ogling, which Sam pretends not to notice. The better not to deal with that later. Perhaps even the better to pretend he's going to wake up any second now and find he dreamed the entire thing.

Perry nods and retools his team. With the extra help, they pin down the girlfriend's residence--about thirty minutes away, the next county over. It’s only when they’re loading into cars making plans to mitigate the situation on arrival that Sam thinks this might have been a bad idea.

The house is rough around the edges, with boarded windows and peeling paint. The snow drifts will be a bitch if they have to chase Collins. With any luck it won’t come to that. Sam takes Newman and tells him to stay close—he hasn’t had Newman long enough to feel comfortable letting him walk into a situation like that. Not that he ever will. Cosmo, Poole, and Biggs take the side door while Henry joins Royce and Perry to take the back, the other three FBI agents in Perry’s team discreetly spread outside in case Collins makes a break for it.

They duck and weave as Sam hisses at Newman to be drunk, yanking his U.S. Marshals jacket into place. If these agents shoot Newman he’ll be forced to shoot them, and he couldn’t meet Newman’s eyes again knowing he invited them to participate because of whatever fucking brain cells have been jostled since Tennessee.

“You in position?” he hisses into his radio.

“We’re ready, Sam,” Cosmo murmurs.

“On your mark.” Royce’s voice is too loud and too quiet in his ear.

Sam grits his teeth, then exhales. “Let’s get him.” It would be satisfying to kick down the door and roar, “ _U.S. Marshals!”_ but it’s more of a relief to focus on an immediate danger, a problem he can solve.

The girlfriend won’t stop screaming. He creeps forward and through the living room with no sign of Collins. He sends Newman to cut around through the kitchen toward Royce and Perry while he moves past the screaming girlfriend, her voice ringing hard and high in his ears.

Sam’s head snaps toward the sound of a scuffle from where he just sent Newman. “I got your man!” Collins shouts, only just audible over the screaming and the sounds of Newman struggling against him. “I got your man!”

He’s moving toward the back. Sam prowls slowly forward, only to pause when he hears Royce shout, “Freeze!”

“You think I won’t shoot him?” Collins shouts.

“You’re only going to make this worse for yourself if you do,” Royce replies evenly.

Royce must be inching closer, until Collins shouts at him to stay the hell back or he’ll blow his boy’s fucking brains out.

Sam places the shout and prowls forward, through a hall past the screaming girlfriend that cuts along the side of the house.

“No one has to get hurt, Collins,” Royce says, placating. Sam subdues a hiss. There’s no way Royce has a clear shot.

“I want out of here!” Collins shouts back, and that gives Sam the placement he needs, slipping through another room to pause at a door with a beaded curtain, pressing against the wall to stay out of sight.

In a narrow hallway facing the backyard, Collins has most of his back to the wall parallel to Sam, maybe three feet away, facing shielded from view from the back door on the opposite wall. His left arm is wrapped in a choke hold around Newman’s throat, trapping Newman against him as a human shield. Royce is standing in the door at the other end of the hall to Collins' left, gun raised and his eyes steady on Collins. Even if Collins’ right hand wasn’t pointing Newman’s gun at his temple, Newman might not be able to get free—Collins has three inches on him easy, though he’s curled himself down and around Newman to block Royce’s line of fire. His shouting and the girlfriend's screaming means Collins hasn't heard Sam approaching, and Royce is too focused on Collins to notice Sam just beyond his field of vision.

"I want out of here!" Collins shouts again, inching slightly away from Royce but still-- _goddammit_ \--not changing his angle. Sam watches, dead silent, and waits.

"What do you want, huh?" Royce calls back. "No reason anyone has to get hurt, Arthur."

"I want a car out of here! I don't want nobody following--"

In that split second, Collins shifts, and Sam springs through the beaded curtain, brackets his shooting arm along the wall and fires twice, barely hearing Royce screech, " _Shit_ ," and, " _Don't shoot!_ " as his kids come flying into the hall from behind Royce and the door on Collins' other side. Sam steps through the curtain with his gun fixed on Collins as Collins slides down against the wall and Newman stumbles forward and away, doubled and clutching his right ear.

He realizes he's panting like he sprinted ten miles, and doesn't take his eyes off Collins until Collins slides to the floor, Newman's gun clattering away on the tile. He only looks away to check Newman, that Newman isn't bleeding, that he hasn't been hit, shaken but unharmed but for the sound wave of the gunshot blast. He glances once more at Collins to affirm he's no longer a threat to Newman, breathes out, "It's over," without looking at his kids, and turns on his heel to stride back in the direction he came. The girlfriend lets out a single scream as he strides past. He doesn't recognize his own voice when he turns and snarls, " _Shut up_ ," barely processes her terrified recoil. There are already sirens outside.

What a mess. What an absolute goddamn mess.

It all moves too fast and not at all after that. FBI and Marshals alike both empty from the house while Sam meets the arriving cops and ambulance. Someone--one of Perry's kids--hauls out the girlfriend in cuffs. He hears, somewhere behind him, Poole talking faintly to Newman as she drags him out, Biggs giving directions to the EMTs. Collins is announced dead on arrival.

By the time Sam looks up, his kids have gathered with Perry's team around one of the SUVs, talking. Plotting, if Sam's eyes don't deceive him. He doesn't know what they're plotting and doesn't care--Newman is leaning against a car across the way waiting for the EMTs to inspect him, the wind lifting and dropping his curls. He's rubbing his right ear, watching the local cops load Collins' girlfriend into the back of a squad car. Sam only gets a brief glance as he approaches, just enough for him to know Newman has noticed him coming.

"I can't believe you did that," Newman murmurs, almost too quiet for Sam to know it's meant for him.

"You think I should have bargained with him?"

"Yeah." Newman looks up at him, his expression clear even though he's squinting and reddened from the cold. "Yeah, I do, Sam."

Sam hums, tilting his head to get a look at where Newman's fingers partially cover his ear. "How's that ear?"

"Ringing. Loudly. Probably going to have permanent hearing loss."

"Mm. Come here." Sam leans in, just a bit, and says softly, "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah." Sam leans closer until he's about an inch from Newman's ear, staring out at the field beyond.

"I. Don't. Bargain," he hisses in Newman's ear. _Not when it's one of my kids_. "You hear that?"

"Yeah." Newman's voice is flat and quiet, not looking at Sam. Sam has disappointed him, he knows. It hurts to know, but so be it. Collins is the one being rolled out in a body bag, not Noah. Sam would make that choice again every time and never once be sorry.

He leans away and grips Newman's shoulder briefly, affirming for himself at least that this is real, that Noah is fine. "Get that ear checked and take the rest of the day off. I'll handle your reports." _I'm glad you're alright_ , he doesn't say. He turns away and starts striding toward where his team and Perry's team are congregated and talking among themselves, only to be broadsided by Royce.

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

Sam doesn't look over his shoulder. "You're going to have to be more specific."

There's a death grip on his arm and Royce is yanking him to the SUV where everyone else is not, twisting Sam to look at him even as he corners him against the car door. Sam slips his mask into place as he does. It's a good thing, because if looks could kill, Royce would have disemboweled him by now.

"I could have shot you, you asshole," Royce says, but just quiet enough that his voice can't carry to where everyone else is just out of earshot.

"Lucky for you, you didn't," Sam retorts, doing his best to sound deadpan.

"Or Collins could have shot Newman, you think of that?"

"I wouldn't have let that happen," Sam says, low and dangerous. _Back up and get gone, Royce_.

Somehow this angers Royce further. "You think I would have? I had it under control."

That hits a vein of hot anger in Sam's throat he didn't know was there. "You call Collins holding my kid at gunpoint under control?"

"You call springing out of nowhere to take a risky shot that could have clipped your kid _under control_?" Royce snaps back.

"I knew what I was walking into and I took a calculated risk," Sam replies, holding himself still as a stone to let Royce's anger roll right over him. He's had far more practice in far worse situations than Royce. "You don't like the way I do things, you can get off my crime scene and go back to wherever the _hell_ you crawled out of." The sharpness of the last sentence startles him even as it leaves his mouth, scraping past his tongue and through his teeth to whistle through the air at Royce.

Royce exhales in a fast huff, shifting a muscle in his jaw and tilting his head like he's suddenly able to see Sam clearly. "You don't trust me, do you?"

"I only trust me to take care of my kids." _I don't trust anyone_.

"That's not what I asked," Royce snaps. “And Collins wasn’t Sheridan.”

“No,” Sam replies, cool and quick as the winter air biting their faces.

“You can’t hold Sheridan against me forever.”

“I don’t.”

Royce looks him up and down, shaking his head. Sam doesn’t need to hear what he's thinking. He's heard it before from plenty of people who weren't content to think it.

"Well that wasn't fun!" Suddenly Cosmo is there with one arm around Sam's shoulder and the other around Royce's. This, Sam suspects, is the conclusion of his kids plotting, based on how the others have suddenly appeared around them. "I don't know about you boys, but this morning demands a drink."

"It's two p.m.," Sam says dryly.

"We have reports to file," Royce says with equal disinterest.

"Pair of day drinkers, you two." Cosmo rolls his eyes. "So we all file reports, even file correctly, get outta dodge and reconvene at McRory's." Cosmo grins with slight viciousness at Perry as he talks. Perry, Sam notes with dismay, already looks like he's been worn down.

"We'll even buy the first round," Henry says.

"If you buy the second," Biggs adds.

Even Poole chimes in, "In order of fugitive."

 _They're a terrible influence on her_ , Sam thinks, barely listening to Perry's agreement.

They only quip that fast when they've been plotting. Sam knows a lost cause when he sees one and contents himself with staying out of the riptide. He can vanish into his office for the rest of the afternoon before disappearing home to a quiet apartment and ibuprofen. He nods, hearing Royce's assent on Cosmo's other side. Sam peels away as they briefly heckle Royce. Cosmo, having gotten his way, lets Sam go, grins wider and jogs over to Newman to let him know he's being dragged along for a celebratory drink after work is done. Knowing Cosmo, the phrasing is something to the effect of celebratory-didn't-get-dead drinks. Sam pours himself into the driver's seat of the SUV and waits for his team to pile in.

Walsh is _pissed_.

"Deputy Gerard!" she calls from the other side of the office, striding across the room to fall in step with him. Sam's kids fall back on instinct.

"Marshal Walsh," he returns, continuing en route to his office, where it is blessedly dark and devoid of people.

He's barely made it through the door when Walsh slams the door behind her. "You mind explaining what the hell happened this morning?"

"We recaptured Arthur Collins and Jeremy Pulaski." He shrugs off his coat and sinks into his chair, regarding Walsh without expression.

"Really? Because I thought I dispatched you to a train crash and you brought back one fugitive in a body bag."

"Collins pulled a gun on one of my kids."

"And who do I have to blame for this clusterfuck?"

"Well, you can blame me, ma'am," Sam says, leaning back in his chair, "I'm the one that shot him."

"Jesus Christ, Sam." Walsh digs two fingers into her right temple, closing her eyes. "And what is this shit with the FBI?"

"They had jurisdiction over Pulaski and used it. They offered to assist with Collins."

Walsh looks at Sam like he's grown a second head. Also like she needs another cup of coffee. Sam knows the feeling. "And you accepted?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You despise Perry."

"I dislike Perry."

Walsh stares at him. Sam stares right back. Walsh arches a brow at Sam, expectant. "Is Noah alright?"

"Rattled, but fine."

"He's taking the rest of the day off."

"Already done."

"Good." Walsh looks out through the window of Sam's office. His kids scramble to look busy doing their jobs. "What are they all focused for?"

"Cosmo's dragging them all for drinks once reports are done. Perry's team, too."

"Ah." Walsh switches back to Sam with an assessing glare that once served her well as a prosecutor. "You're going with them."

"I am?" he says, only a bit cool.

"You are," she replies, frigid. "Then you're going to go home and I'm not going to see your face in here until Monday." Sam starts to speak, closing his mouth again when Walsh raises a hand. _Don't you dare_ , says the tension in her fingers. "You've barely stood still since Tennessee, Sam, and you're burning both ends to do it. I don't want to see you burn someone in the process. Least of all yourself. So you're going to take the long weekend and you're going to rest and you're going to sort through whatever shit needs sorting. And if you call in tomorrow to have Renfro keep you up to speed I'm making you take next week too. Understood?"

They stare at each other for a beat. Sam nods, his mouth a thin line.

Walsh puts her hand on the doorknob, then stops and sighs at the doorknob, looking at Sam one more time. "I'm not punishing you, Sam. You know that, right?"

He does, objectively. And yet. "Yeah."

Walsh nods once. "Get some rest. I'll see you on Monday." And with that, his office door is open and Walsh is gone.

It takes the rest of the afternoon to square away the reports. It helps that Sam stays in his office. Not hiding. Out of the way, where he can deal with his own reports and Newman's reports without interruption. But he knows as soon as Cosmo appears in his door frame around six that they've already called Perry's team to meet at McRory's. Cosmo at least has the grace not to look surprised when Sam follows him with neither comment nor protest.

McRory's is bustling when they arrive, but not bustling enough for them to miss Perry's team spread in a close-knit cluster of tables. Sam briefly contemplates whether he can beg off with a sudden case of needing to be anywhere else, but Cosmo, as if by a sixth sense, has him boxed in alongside Poole, herding him forward to run headlong into where Newman and Royce are talking at the bar.

"Newman," he says, getting a nod in return. "That ear alright in this noise?"

"It's fine. Thanks Sam."

It's the second sentence that lets him know he'll be forgiven, which settles some of the tension in his ribs. Sam pats Newman's arm as he moves away from the bar to greet Biggs and Henry, taking Newman's place to flag the bartender for two fingers of Maker's Mark neat.

"Still a whiskey drinker, I see?"

A dry voice to his right--the only one he'd childishly hoped he wouldn't have to engage with here. He turns to see Royce leaning back on his elbows against the bar with his own liquor near his wrist. He's shed the tie and suit jacket, leaving a dove gray dress shirt and a casual slouch behind. Sam doesn't let himself take a larger than normal sip. "Only in winter."

"What do you drink in the summer, then?"

"Beer."

Royce snorts like he'd thought as much, turning back to survey the room. The movement makes the light catch on the gun at his hip, catching Sam's eye.

"You got a Glock?"

"When I made it back to New York." Royce gives him a close-lipped smile that doesn't make it to his eyes. "Came on good advice."

"Man of the hour." Cosmo appears in front of them, apparently invigorated by the noise. Sam's rarely been more grateful for his sense of timing.

"Am I?" Royce says, and though he takes a drink to hide it, Sam can tell he's not certain if he's happy about that.

"Sure," Cosmo says, "seeing as how you never explained how you got punted into our backyard."

"Transferred in," Perry calls from a table over. "Glad to know you've already met my new field agent."

"No shit?" Cosmo whistles. "Sheridan turn out that well for you?" Royce shrugs as if shedding an uncomfortably tight coat, though Cosmo doesn't seem to catch why. "Hey, don't downplay, man. That's great news. Hey," he calls over his shoulder to the rest of the team, who look up from whatever it is they're bickering with Perry's kids about, "looks like we're keeping Royce after all! Newman, you owe me twenty."

That wins him a round of cheers, a few claps, and Newman sheepishly fishing out his wallet. "You're kidding?" This from Biggs, winning him a swift elbow from Poole.

"Stuck with me for the foreseeable future, I'm afraid," Royce says. His good cheer is artfully forced.

"I'll drink to that," Cosmo says, holding his glass up and gesturing to Royce as though they all can't already see him. "Here's to keeping the only good relic of the Tennessee swamps, folks."

Sam's kids all raise their glasses. Royce salutes the rest of them perfunctorily, though Sam notes his own team aren't paying him much mind. As if he can sense Sam watching, he cuts a look to his right and sighs, resting his arm on the bar without setting his drink back down, though he does wait until Cosmo has wandered back to the rest of them to talk, only loud enough for Sam to hear. "After the Sheridan case, my performance was reviewed. In light of those events, I was offered a job in the Chicago field office last month. A promotion." The last sentence comes out only marginally defensive.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"That mean you're a permanent pain in my ass?"

Royce snorts. "That's the idea."

"Aren't I lucky."

"Aren't you just."

Sam pals around for another hour, drifting here and there as his kids or the FBI agents pull him in and out of conversation, though they let him get away with occasional nods or glares of disagreement. Royce remains at his station by the bar, where Sam's kids flit in and out of chatting with him, though only one or two of his own team does the same. Sam thinks they're either on their best behavior or it's been a stiff first month, then tells himself to stop being over-observant. He waits just long enough to be sure that his one or two sips of whiskey have worn off, then stands to make his excuses to his kids, who act pointedly begrudging but not entirely surprised.

He slips next to Royce to return his glass to the bartender, clinking it to Royce's before giving it a gentle push toward the back of the bar. Royce doesn’t look up. “Glad to have you in Chicago," he says, not certain that Royce can hear him and not certain he wants to be heard. He waves goodnight to his kids and makes his exit.

He doesn't look back, but he could swear he feels Royce's eyes on him as he goes, appraising him. He still hasn't shaken the feeling by the time he's driven back to his own apartment and winds up walking in circles around his neighborhood for two hours in the cold, far too tired to fall asleep.

Sam wakes up not enough hours later to the alarm he forgot to turn off, pulling on his running clothes to catch a few miles before showering for work only to remember--Walsh has banished him until Monday. He finishes tying the laces with a snap and sets off anyway, figuring he'll at least have an excuse to run a proper distance for a change. Maybe then he'll be tired enough to sleep until noon. Or Monday.

He makes it thirty minutes into his route and is branching off on a new sidewalk, considering how he can widen his loop. He's not paying as much attention as usual, and there's a row of trees blocking his view of the corner, though he doesn't notice it until he plows straight into another runner. Someone's shoe catches someone else's shin catches an ankle and they're both toppling into the snow, Sam twisting sideways to land on his shoulder as the other guy trips over his feet and catches one knee hard on the pavement, turning just fast enough to land his side in the snow instead of his face. Sam turns over to ask him if he's alright, apologize, and chew him out for being an idiot, in no particular order of importance.

Of course it's John Royce. Because who else would it be, now that Sam has taken the mantle of the universe's favorite punching bag. Sam resists the urge to groan and pinch himself awake. He's not sure how.

The only consolation is that Royce looks as gobsmacked as Sam feels. "Gerard?"

He stares at Royce blankly. Royce is still there. All Sam can come up with is, "What are you doing here?"

"I live here," Royce says, like he's not certain he's awake. Sam knows the feeling. "What's your excuse?"

"I already lived here." It sounds lame even to his own ears.

Royce huffs a laugh. "You know," he says, dragging himself upright and brushing off the salt, "when you asked if I was going to be a permanent pain in your ass, I didn't think you meant literally."

Sam briefly contemplates what would happen if he asked Royce to stop haunting his waking nightmares. Probably nothing that would end in Royce going away. He accepts the outstretched hand Royce offers and lurches back to his feet. They both assess themselves, Royce turning his knee experimentally. Sam watches, though Royce doesn't seem pained. "That knee alright?"

"It'll live." Royce turns his eyes to Sam's shoulder. They're brighter in the gray hours of the morning, flecked in gold and alert. "How's that shoulder?"

"It'll live."

Royce looks him up and down but apparently decides to believe him. "If you already lived here, how have I not run into you already? Literally or figuratively."

Ah, right. That. "I don't normally run this way. I was doing a longer route than usual."

"That would do it." Royce glances in the direction he was heading, then back at Sam. "Well...if you're looking for a longer route, you're welcome to join mine."

It's the best and worst idea Sam's heard all week. He can already feel a second wind in his legs. "I don't want to impose."

It's the wrong thing to say, because Royce suddenly has an impish glint in his eye. "Sure it's not because you can't keep up, old man?"

That Sam will not abide. "More like worried you can keep up with me." Then Sam's off like a shot in the direction Royce was headed, laughing at Royce's cry of indignation. He gives it about half a block before slowing to let Royce catch up.

"You don't know where you're going," Royce says as he comes up to Sam's shoulder.

Sam knows exactly where he is in his neighborhood, and that's completely not the point. "Then lead."

Royce leads for another two miles, a surprisingly punishing loop with a lot of zigzagging across hills that Sam's passed through but never actually run before. At first he just keeps pace, but Royce speeds up, and Sam matches him. Sam speeds up slightly, finding Royce right alongside. He does it again, and Royce is there. By the last block, they're all but sprinting, side by side, Sam's lungs burning in a way he could happily keep all day. They slow to a halt on the corner and just breathe a moment. There's no more thinking and no excess movement to burn, just the relief of Sam's skin fitting properly for the first time in weeks.

Royce grins like the sunrise, straightening as Sam does. "Not bad for an old man."

Sam snorts, but he's surprised to find himself grinning back. "Not bad for a young'un."

"Ha." Royce gestures to his right, up the street. There are still only the barest signs of people moving in their homes. "Well, this is my stop."

Sam looks in the direction Royce gestured, then juts his head over his shoulder, across the intersection. "I'm about four blocks that way."

Royce glances that way, then down at his watch, looking a bit guilty. "Probably time for me to shower and drive in."

That dampens Sam's spirits, but not as much as he would have expected. "Boss gave me a long weekend."

"Ah. Well, enjoy it." Sam nods, though his feet don't want to turn around and walk back to his own apartment. He's turned and taken four steps toward the curb when Royce says, "I'll be out again tomorrow, around six. If you want company."

Sam looks back over his shoulder. Royce has his hands in his pockets, carefully nonchalant. Sam's mouth quirks, and he nods. Royce grins again, naming the street corner and asking if Sam knows it. Sam does. They agree to six a.m., and Royce gives him a mock salute before turning to jog up the street.

Sam's made it two blocks before realizing he wants to make Royce grin like that again.

His own apartment is empty and quiet, though it doesn't bother him as much as he expected. He showers and finishes coffee in enough time to open the door for his confused cleaning lady, slipping out the door as soon as polite pleasantries allow to while away as much of the morning as he can walking in circles, then at the grocery store. It's two p.m. and he's baking a recipe he's never done before he stops, scrubs at his eyes with his forearm, and lets himself hope for six a.m. His downstairs neighbor, an elderly widow called Mrs. Rosen, is nonetheless delighted to take the results off his hands. He wastes the day tidying his kitchen and office without interest and, when night finally comes, finds himself staring at the ceiling for hours.

Six a.m. finally does come, bringing Royce with it. It's easier for Sam to breathe as soon as they start running, occasionally talking about Friday but mostly running in companionable silence.

So, too, comes six a.m. on Sunday. Sam neglects to tell Royce that he normally (rarely) takes (forces) himself to take Sundays off.

So, too, comes six a.m. on Monday. He walks into the office as though wrapping himself in a favorite blanket, though not with quite the level of clinging desperation. Walsh quips that he must have made good use of his long weekend. Sam growls back without heat. Life returns to the same steady, soothing rhythm, and Sam can almost pretend Collins never happened.

So passes a week of six a.m.'s, as if they've always been doing this. Sam hasn't had a running partner in a long time and is surprised to find that he enjoys it. Royce is well-matched to him, a runner built for long miles at a steady pace reinforced by a certain brand of willfulness.

By the week and a half mark, Sam pushes down the temptation to ask why Royce is doing this. They've more or less gracefully avoided the topic of work, or what waits for either of them after showering and leaving the safety of their apartments for another day. If Sam doesn't ask, he won't need to find out why Royce wants to run with him, nor will Royce have an invitation to ask about Sam's days beyond their six a.m.'s in ways that lead him to situations like Arthur Collins, and they can carry on at peace with each other as they have for a week and a half, as though they've been doing this for years. And if Sam takes some pleasure in occasionally making Royce grin like that just to see if he can, well. That's no one's business but his own.

Sam thus manages to dissociate John Royce from the world of work. Royce exists at six a.m. in Sam's own neighborhood, Sam's kids exist at the office. And while Sam knows that Royce exists somewhere in the FBI field office not terribly far from the Marshals office, so much dangerously closer than Manhattan, he can soothe himself with the knowledge that the FBI field office lives in terror of having to cross paths with Deputy Marshal Gerard, and that he and Perry have never much liked each other. That, at least, should be sufficient to keep John Royce safely removed from his life so long as the Marshals and the FBI--so long as Sam's team and Perry's team--don't have the bad luck of sharing jurisdiction.

So naturally, Sam walks in the following Wednesday to find his luck has run out. John Royce, in a sharp dress shirt and tie instead of the worn-in NYU sweatshirt from this morning, has an armload of case files and is perched at the corner of Newman's desk, chatting with his kids.

Sam takes a moment to collect himself before anyone notices him, then strides up in full Big Dog prowl. "The hell are you doing in my office, Royce?"

"Good morning to you too," Royce replies, as though meeting Sam on a Sunday stroll in the park. _Bastard_. "Apparently, being fresh meat and thus near the bottom of the food chain, I've been gifted the dreadful task of communicating with the Marshals Service on the Oberetti case." That wins him a round of groans. Another damn Gambino case. "They seem convinced that Deputy Gerard will eat them alive." 

"Yep, sounds like Big Dog," Henry calls from his desk. Biggs gives a mocking dog howl. Cosmo just cackles.

Sam really needs a new team. "Then what the hell are you standing around for?"

He doesn't beat a retreat to his office, both out of sheer stubbornness and because he's needed at the board in the middle of the room. Royce spreads out his files, gets directions to the coffee machine from Newman, and re-integrates into Sam's team as if they're back in Roy Willy's all over again. Except Poole tosses tasks in his way for her own enjoyment rather than spite, and Newman cracks terrible jokes with him, and Cosmo is, as a rule, a menace. Biggs and Henry, as they always do when provided a fresh victim courtesy of the Chicago field office, take turns shouting things in the general vicinity of the receiver every time Royce has to call Perry, sometimes helpful, often not. Royce remains an irritating smartass, snarking back and forth with Sam with slightly more daring than his kids, who know the exact boundary line of when they're going to get their heads bitten off.

And as they wear into day three, finally closing out the Oberetti case in the late hours of Friday, Sam slips into his office to finalize details and breathe a sigh of relief. Royce will be gone by the end of the day, and Sam can return to a safe if amicable arm's length.

The final details take longer to close than he thought, but it's soothing work to lose himself in, occasionally looking up to nod goodbye to his kids as they pass on their way to their own families. There's a knock on his door frame and he looks up to find that it's dark, and that Royce is leaning against his door.

"You off?" Sam asks, drawing on the stillness in his bones.

Royce nods, yawning. "I have to run the files back to home base first, then I'm out of your hair." His eyes rake over the paperwork still sprawled in front of Sam. "You eaten?"

Sam looks at his watch, startled to find it's almost eleven. "Lost track of time."

Royce nods like he expected it. "I was going to grab something, if you want company."

 _If you want company_. Sam gestures broadly to the remains of the Oberetti files. "I have to finish these first."

"I have to run a box back to the field office first anyway."

"It might take a bit."

"I can be there and back in about thirty minutes." Royce stands, cracking his neck with a wince. "I'll come back up for you?" He grins and vanishes before Sam realizes he's agreed to it. But in thirty minutes, Royce does return, ten minutes after Sam finished the Oberetti files. He stands and shrugs into his coat, earning another grin as he does.

The place turns out to be a small hole in the wall a short walk from the Marshals office, somewhere Sam has been many a late night before. Not at all memorable, but it's there and open, which is about all Sam could hope for at this hour. There's a slight bustle, given that it is a Friday, but they still get a table within a few minutes. The waitress is uninterested, a blessed respite from the need to be pleasant, and takes their orders the moment they sit down.

Sam gives Royce a moment to settle, noting how the flat yellow light draws out the shadows in Royce's face, makes it harder for him to hide his tiredness behind a mask of bullshit. He wonders, briefly, what Royce sees when he looks at him, then pushes the thought down. "How are you adjusting to Chicago?"

"Other than the Midwest nice?"

Sam glares. Royce, damn him, doesn't wither. "Do I seem nice to you?"

"You," Royce purrs, "are practically a New Yorker." Sam's face must read something like _you have a real funny way of pronouncing asshole_ , because Royce's face cracks and he laughs. "The lack of a subway counts against Chicago, but I can't complain about the rent."

The waitress appears with water just long enough to set it down and vanish again, though Sam's not sure for what purpose. "Does your family miss having you close?" If he had to bet on his instincts, and his instincts are usually right, Royce made his joke with the sensibilities of a lifelong New Yorker.

Royce uses his straw to fiddle with the ice in his glass. "I'm sorry not to see my friends in person anymore. But," he shrugs, with a look up at Sam, _you know?_ Sam doesn’t. "It was time for a fresh start."

A New Yorker after all, though he smoothly elided over family. Sam files it away without comment. "Took me a while to get used to winters being so cold."

"Really?" Royce says. Sam is beginning to recognize that tone as a warning sign of impending sarcasm. "I had the strangest notion you were from Maine."

Sam lets his Texas accent out stronger than usual, deliberately turning the vowels into syrup. "Don't know who told you you're clever, but they lied."

Royce just smirks. "What do you do? Outside of work and running," Royce adds, as though he already knew what Sam would answer.

Sam levels him a flat stare. "What do you do outside of work and running?"

"Touche."

They bicker like that for a while longer without any heat, amicably and about nothing important. The waitress brings out their food in a brief lull in the conversation. It's nothing inspired, and Sam could certainly do better with his own two hands, but then again, his own two hands didn't have to produce it. 

Apparently they're both hungrier than they thought, because the conversation quiets briefly. Then Sam looks up at Royce to find himself being inspected. "You never did ask about Sheridan."

That's not quite what Sam's not asking. The real question he's thinking is _why are you here?_ "I figured it wasn't my business."

"Somehow, I suspect things not being your business is rarely a deterrent for you."

It almost never is. Sam just gestures with one palm up, an invitation.

Royce sighs. Now that he's mentioned the elephant, he doesn't seem to know where to lead it. After a moment, he speaks up again. "Lamb was pissed that I stepped on his toes to get Sheridan, but I cleaned up a big embarrassment for him and brought back good press to boot. Some people upstairs took notice. When my performance review came up, I was offered a promotion in Chicago." He gives Sam the same close-lipped smile from McRory's. "The timing turned out in my favor."

It's a longer version of Royce's answer in McRory's, but it still doesn't answer the real question. "Why Chicago?" It’s still not quite what Sam wants to ask, but closer still.

Royce shrugs. "Perry had a space he needed to fill. I," he pauses, just enough for Sam to catch it, then plows on, "I needed space from New York. Like I said. The timing worked out in my favor."

 _New York_ , Sam thinks, _or Daniel Ward?_ It’s not quite an answer, but closer still.

But Royce is already looking at him, talking. "What's your excuse? For being in Chicago."

Royce is smooth. But not quite smooth enough. "Got a job offer I couldn't refuse."

Royce chuckles to himself. "Guess that makes two of us, then."

 _Maybe that makes both of us liars_ , Sam thinks. He can't find it in him to resent Royce for it. They eat enough not to go to bed hungry, and Royce flags the waitress for the bill, insisting on paying since he's the one who dragged Sam out.

"I'll get the next one, then."

"Does that mean there will be a next one?" Royce asks, but he catches the waitress before Sam has a chance to answer and then they're out and he's grumbling about the cold, so Sam's not sure if he was meant to answer the question.

They part ways in the parking garage, agreeing to meet at six a.m. the next morning as usual. Royce doesn't ask again, and Sam half convinces himself he's forgotten. The next week shows no sign of him in Sam's office. Yet Sam can't find it in himself to be surprised when his office phone rings late on Friday night and it's Royce, asking if he's eaten yet, if he wants company. He hasn't, and he does. He picks up Royce from his office and introduces him to one of his better hideaways, a seafood place with excellent whitefish and bread.

They're called in to protect a judge the Friday after, but the following Friday they find themselves eating together again at an Italian place twenty minutes from Royce's office. And the Friday after that, a cheap pizza joint Sam knows.

Before Sam knows it, they've passed a month and four Friday dinners like that. Not that he's counting. And then Christmas is upon them, as it is every year.

Sam offers to take the holiday hours so those with families can stay home, as he does every year. Walsh is unamused, as she always is, but she can't argue with willing labor on a shift no one wants. The problem is that no one else is in the office, and the worse elements of society have apparently little interest in attempting to escape prison, which means Sam has little else to do but think of John Royce.

He has Royce's home number, bullied out of Royce by Poole and tossed in Sam's general direction by Cosmo so that, quote, "Sam can wake you up himself when he wants to annoy someone at the ass crack of dawn." Only, he hasn't used it outside of work contexts. Because they're not friends. And it would be strange, Sam thinks, to call Royce now, knowing full well that both Biggs and Cosmo have offered/threatened to drag Sam out of the office to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas respectively with their own families, as if Sam is the odd bachelor uncle. He already knows Poole intends to show up at his door on Christmas Eve and Christmas if Biggs and Cosmo don't succeed and that Poole will show up at his door the day after Christmas if they do.

He recites the numbers once more in his head. Then the phone rings. Sam does not jump a mile. It does take a solid two seconds to process that the phone is ringing, though. He picks up on the third ring. "Gerard."

"So you _are_ a gremlin who hides at work over the holidays."

Royce. Sam scrubs a hand over his eyes, kicking away the part of him that already feels more awake. "Who the hell gave you that line?"

"Cosmo," Royce hums. Sam can hear him grinning through the phone. Goddamn him. Renfro too.

"I'm going to shoot him."

"I request plausible deniability," Royce says without missing a beat.

"Do you have anything better to do than annoy me?"

"Nope," Royce chirps. Not that Sam has anything better to do than pretend to be annoyed by Royce. Not that Royce will ever know that. "In fact," Sam can hear him making a show of looking around his office, "I'm one of the unlucky few stuck babysitting the office."

"So you thought to call me?"

"I was told by a reliable source that you're a gremlin who hides at the office over the holidays." Sam can picture the smile on his face, how it brightens his entire countenance even in his lopsided smirk. "And being just such a gremlin myself, I figure we have nothing better to do but annoy each other."

Sam sighs. He already knows he'll while away the few days Walsh kicks him to the curb in his kitchen, and he might as well gift the results to another person. Because apparently, having the office so quiet is drowning out the sound of his better judgment. "Do you have food in your apartment?"

"You ask that like you think I don't. I'm offended."

"That's a no."

"Correct."

Sam can already tell this is a terrible idea. And yet. "If you don't have anything better to do, I'll be in my apartment Christmas Eve through the 26th. If you want company." He braces himself not to be disappointed, chanting that this is, in fact, a terrible idea.

This time, Sam doesn't need to picture Royce smiling--he can hear it through the phone. "What do you want me to bring?"

They agree to run on Christmas Eve as usual, parting just long enough to venture back to their own apartments to shower and for Royce to reappear on Sam's doorstep. The fringe benefit of Royce living four blocks away is that his car won't be parked out front, which is useful. Sam stays up late on the 22nd so that he can appear on Biggs and Cosmo's doorsteps after work on the 23rd with whiskey cake and cookies respectively. Both of them unsubtly cast fishing lines to find out if Sam will appear on their doorsteps of his own accord or if they'll have to show up and drag him out personally. Sam tells them that an old friend is dropping by for the holidays and gives them a glare to turn men to stone. Poole he gifts a bottle of her favorite gin and she lets him off the hook with the old friend story even though her face says they both know it’s bullshit, shooing him out of her house to enjoy his own holiday with his old friend.

And thus, with no risk of any of his kids showing up when Royce might be there, he returns from their run on Christmas Eve with the distinct thought that he's losing his goddamn mind.

Royce shows up around eight in wet hair and Georgetown Law sweatshirt in deference to Sam's orders not to wear anything he was fussed about damaging, bearing a few supplementary supplies to last through the day, a bag of rented movies, and takeout menus for about a dozen Chinese restaurants for later in the day. He was the one to suggest a cheerful fuck you in the face of all Christmas tradition. A man after Sam's own heart.

Sam greets him at the door with flour already on his hands. Royce raises a brow at that, the other brow following when he follows Sam to his kitchen.

"What, you think my talents are limited to hunting fugitives?"

"And growling at people," Royce supplies, surveying the various baking supplies in stages of use. "What is all of this?"

Sam returns to his station with the bowl, cutting butter for shortbread. "Baking."

"I got that far."

Sam doesn't look up from the butter, which is, as ever, sticking to the knife and creating a minor mess. "I bake cookies on Christmas Eve. Most of it goes to a homeless shelter downtown, a batch of molasses cookies for my downstairs neighbor, and the rest goes to my kids after the holidays."

He uses the knife to push the butter into the flour bowl and looks up to find Royce where he'd left him, with an expression that's half dazed and half amazement. "I don’t know how, but somehow that is completely in character for you." Royce sets the takeout menus out of the way and the supplementary supplies in the fridge, then rolls up his sleeves. "What do you need?"

It quickly becomes apparent that Royce is an eager helper, if entirely unversed in the basic facts of baking. Sam sets him to mixing the shortbread while he does lemon curd, figuring that lemon bars were a safe starting point because if Royce was useful, they would both have something to do, and if Royce wasn't useful, Sam would be occupied for the better part of an hour and a half before he had to worry about what to do with Royce using all of his attention.

"What the hell is a lemon curd?" Royce calls over the noise of the mixer.

"Eggs, lemon juice, sugar, zest, cornstarch, and butter," Sam recites back, not looking up from separating yolks.

"That sounds deeply questionable."

Sam snorts, ably catching a yolk as he drops it between the two halves of the shell. "Spoken like a man who's never had it."

"Nope," Royce replies, "my mother wasn't the baking kind."

"Then she'll be delighted to learn Chicago is broadening your palette. Watch the flour."

Eventually, Royce mixes the shortbread to Sam's satisfaction and is guided through the process of pressing it into the pan, where it disappears into the oven. He settles at Sam's kitchen table to watch Sam at the stove, observing with no small amount of skepticism. "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for it to thicken."

"Is that what the whisking does?"

"No," Sam replies, giving it a hard stir and watching the curd like he's about to interrogate it for murder. "That's to keep it from scrambling the egg."

"You're really not selling this," Royce says, but still watches.

His skepticism hasn't gone down when he watches Sam strain the curd and whisk in lemon zest and butter fifteen minutes later. Sam leans back to fish through his silverware, scoop some on a spoon, and hold it out to Royce. "It's not going to shoot you."

Royce looks at Sam like he's full of shit, but he still takes the spoon. His entire face lights up when he tastes it. "Oh my _god_. Marry me."

Sam snorts despite himself. "You haven't had the pecan balls."

"Don't taunt me, Gerard." Royce swoops in for another spoonful before Sam bats him away.

They carry on like that for several hours, making it through three batches--lemon bars, molasses cookies, and raspberry thumbprints--Royce drilling Sam on the finer details of what he's doing and learning rapidly from direction. If he was anything like that in the Academy, Sam thinks, he must have been one of their best trainees. He still has the image of Royce covered in flour crossed with Royce at Quantico when he delivers the warm molasses cookies to Mrs. Rosen.

After pausing to munch on the odds and ends Royce brought, they settle in to the steady work of whole-pan cookies, lapsing slowly but surely toward three p.m. Royce watches Sam toast coconut with delight, and Sam asks what the Royces do for the holidays, if Royce's mother isn't the baking kind.

"She usually went to this hole in the wall bakery in Greenwich Village run by a menace of a German grandmother. Stocked up on the works to display during her holiday party."

Past tense, Sam notes. "Not anymore?"

"No," Royce says. "Favorite cookie?"

Sam hums, lets him get away with it. "Lemon bars. You?"

"Fair," Royce laughs, then hums in thought. "The bakery sold these gingerbread cookies iced to look like stags and fawns. It was artwork. I don't know where she got the cutters from or if she cut them by hand. But getting one meant it was the holidays. Even at NYU, I went down to get one."

Sam wonders if that means Royce's mother stopped going while he was in NYU, or if she stopped bringing those back for her son. "And Georgetown?" he says, nodding to Royce's sweatshirt.

"Went to law school fresh out of undergrad, so DC was too far and too expensive to justify the trip. After that I was in the Academy." Sam can feel Royce studying his back, though not with the intensity he's used before. Curiosity. "Where did you go?"

"I didn't," Sam replies. "My dad said my mom used to dream about me going to Harvard, but school wasn't quite my speed. I went to the police academy fresh out of high school."

"In Texas?"

Sam nods, pulling the coconut off before it can burn.

"Where does Chicago fit in?"

Sam is silent for a moment, focused on assembling the pieces of his seven-layer bars, speaking again when he can split his attention between spreading ingredients and calling forth history. "I was a cop down in Texas for five years before the Marshals Service offered me a job." A purpose. A focus. "They moved me to Chicago when I was twenty-nine. Been here ever since."

Royce watches as Sam adds the coconut with a flourish, making the seven-layer bars vanish into the oven. "You ever miss it?"

"The warmth, sure."

Royce studies Sam again. Sam looks back, wondering not for the first time what Royce sees. "People miss you in Texas?

Sam considers the ways he could answer that question. How much of an answer he owes Royce. But then, Royce has also evaded family questions, so he allows himself an easy sidestep. "I was almost married once, a long time ago, when I was twenty-two. But." But he knew that he would die a little every night to have to live like that, for all the safety that Marie would have given him, for all that he adored-but-not-loved her. Marie deserved better than that, deserved to be happy and forget Sam Gerard. "But I couldn't do it."

Royce notices the evasion, Sam knows. But he still lets Sam redirect him toward a fresh batch of cookies.

By late afternoon, they box up the cookies for delivery and drive them to the homeless shelter bickering over the radio. It's almost dinnertime when they get back, debating the merits of the various menus before agreeing to test a few different versions of lo mein over one of the rental movies. Royce's collection of rented movies is centered around Texas, though the selections range from _The Texas Chainsaw Massacre_ to _The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas_. Then again, the rentals supplementing Sam's collection are a dozen of the most godawful New York movies Sam could find at the rental store, so he supposes that makes them the same flavor of shit. Royce's cackle of delight is worth every cent.

Two movies later, Royce yawns wide enough to crack his jaw, rolling his neck with a wince. "I should head back."

"You can stay on the couch if you want," Sam says, because hell, he's already digging his own grave. "No real reason to trek four blocks in the cold if you're going to be here in the morning."

Because there's no way Sam's luck won't run out. Because eventually, Royce will get sick of him. Because Royce is young enough to have friends, closer friends than Sam, who he almost assuredly wants to catch up with. "I'll run back to my apartment for clothes and a toothbrush. Unless you want me using yours. Bonding experiences." Royce says the last part grinning like a devil, because he is, in fact, a terror.

"I will kick you to the curb," Sam replies evenly. "See if I don't."

"Yeah, yeah. Let me get my coat."

Christmas morning dawns to Sam, having slept for about ten minutes with the overwhelming quietness of Royce's steady breathing on his couch, waking with the certainty that yesterday must have been something he imagined. And yet, when he pads through his living room, Royce is there on his couch, dead to the world with his face mashed into his pillow. He has twenty minutes of making coffee to convince himself that he's not panicking. By the time he hears movement in the living room and Royce stumbles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed with his hair sticking up on one side, Sam's mask of calm is back in place.

"Morning," Sam says, and gets a grunt in return.

"I hope you make strong coffee," Royce mutters.

"I break out the decaf for guests."

"Fuck you," Royce says, all but falling face-first into the mug Sam holds out. "Only you could wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed out of spite."

 _Chronic insomnia and a flair for bullshit will do that to you_ , Sam thinks. He hasn't actually seen this version of Royce, wide awake as he usually is when they go running at six a.m., and he is far too entertained for his own good.

He's making breakfast and slowly prodding Royce into wakefulness when Cosmo calls around nine. "Merry Christmas, Scrooge!" Cosmo crows in his ear, loud enough for Royce to hear from the other side of the kitchen and snicker silently.

"Asshole."

"Hey, that any way to talk on Christmas?”

"Fine. Merry Christmas, asshole." Sam glances over his shoulder to see Royce's eyes alight with mirth at the half of the conversation he can hear.

"Check the swearing where my kids can hear. Hey!" He can hear Cosmo turn away from the phone to shout into the room behind him. "Everybody say Merry Christmas to Sam!" Cosmo's wife, kids, and in-laws all chorus, just as loud as Cosmo when he picked up the phone. Sam holds the phone a full foot away from his head until the noise stops. Royce is silent, but barely.

"How's your friend?" Cosmo asks. Ah, yes, they've arrived at the interrogation part of the morning. Sam wondered how he might be used to avoid Cosmo's in-laws.

"Half-awake. I'm making breakfast. Or I was until you interrupted."

"It _is_ love," Cosmo coos. Sam prays Royce couldn't hear that part.

"Shut up, Cosmo," he says, though with little venom. "It's just breakfast. Which I would prefer not to burn."

"Uh huh." He knows Cosmo entirely too well if he can recognize Cosmo wagging his eyebrows through the phone. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

"Go open presents with your kids," Sam growls. "And give your wife some of those rum balls I made her."

Royce breaks into a full-throated laugh as soon as Sam's phone is back on the hook. Sam glares without any heat, returning his attention to the eggs.

When Royce stops laughing, Sam can feel himself being watched, again. "You're close to them, aren't you?"

"They're my kids," Sam says. It makes no difference that Biggs is only a few years younger than he is, or that Poole could kick his ass any day of the week. They're his kids.

"Tell me about them?" Royce asks. "Your team. Your kids."

And if there's one thing Sam will always talk about, it's his kids.

They while away the morning on some of the remaining cookies and a few of the movies Royce chose, running the gamut from ridiculous to gory. Then Royce notices Sam's collection of black and white horror movies, his face lighting up in glee as he insists on starting one for the express purpose of mocking it. They make it through the afternoon on the Big Three-- _The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein_ \--and Royce, per his promise, shreds them with the delight of a child.

"Chinese?" Sam asks, standing to stretch his legs. Royce calls his order to Sam's back, and he plucks the Chinese menu he knows has the best version.

Royce is silent when he returns, huffing a breath at something in his head. "I wonder what they'd think of this," he mutters.

Sam sits down carefully, suddenly aware that Royce isn't as casual as he's pretending to be. "Your folks?"

Royce nods, his lips quirking as he glances at _The Wolfman_. "Probably give me grief for a lack of Christmas spirit. Good thing they're not here, I suppose."

It's unclear how Royce feels about the second sentence. "They miss you this year?"

Royce hesitates and stares at the wall, just long enough for Sam to think he might be sorry he asked. "They died in a car crash in my first year in law school. About eight years ago now."

And now the past tense clicks into place. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't know," Royce says. He turns away from the wall to look at Sam. It's an old wound, Sam can see in his face, but no longer necessarily an open one. Mostly. "We weren't exactly on good terms, toward the end. My mother tried to understand, but, well. Strong Italian Catholic upbringing," Royce's smile is brittle, "didn't quite reconcile with homosexuality. But I suppose I can't hold that against her."

Sam nods, slowly. "Your father?"

"Didn't try. My brother followed in his shadow." And there's the part of the wound that's still raw. "Howard washed his hands of me after it became clear I wasn't going to take over the family business. Then the crash. I haven't spoken to my brother since the funeral." He shakes his head, as if to stop the memory of the funeral from resettling in his mind. "My mother wouldn't let him write me out of the will, though, at least the money that was in her name. I took what she left me and used it to pay for law school."

 _And emerged on the other side a new man_ , Sam thinks, _if not a free one_.

Royce doesn't notice him thinking, though, and Sam wipes the thought from his face when Royce looks at him again. "I spent Christmas on my own after that. Except for those few years with Daniel." _Enter stage left, pursued by the ghost of Daniel Ward,_ Sam thinks, as though he was ever far away. "So, you know. Thanks. For offering."

There's a beat of silence. Then Sam speaks, though his voice is softer than he expected, and he's not looking at Royce. "My father was a lifelong cop in Texas. Lieutenant Phillip Gerard." He thinks of the old photo and folded flag in a shoebox in his closet just long enough to shove both away. "My mother was the one who loved Christmas, but she died when I was a kid. Never felt right to do it again without her, and he was working most Christmases anyway." He coughs his throat clear, shifts his jaw. "He was killed in the line of duty my first year as a cop. Anything we used to do when he was around fell away after that. It helped that I always volunteered to take holiday shifts for the people who had families."

Royce is quiet, his face surprisingly gentle. Sam resists the urge to run. "When did you get the idea to start donating baked goods?"

"I didn't." His eyes flick to the kitchen, to the battered recipe box protected in his cupboard. "The cookie recipes were all my mother's. She used to bake to donate to homeless shelters for every holiday when I was little." He shrugs, like it's not a big deal to him. "I found her recipes again when I cleaned out the house to move to Chicago. I picked them up the first winter I was here for something to do with my hands and started donating the the results on Christmas again."

"You're a piece of work, Gerard," Royce says, chuckling a low rumble in his chest. He stands and weaves his way to Sam's liquor cabinet, producing two glasses and a bottle of bourbon. "I don't know about you, but at this rate, I'm going to need a drink."

"Sam." Royce looks back over his shoulder, brows up in surprise halfway through pouring the bourbon. "If we're spending the damn holiday drinking through each other's sob stories, the least you can do is call me Sam."

"In that case, _Sam_ ," Royce says, eyes sparkling as he holds out Sam's drink, "call me John."

Christmas passes and winter bleeds into spring, as surely as it always does. They run together in the mornings, as work will allow, and grab dinner on Fridays, as work will allow. Sam memorizes the phone number of John's desk phone faster than he'll admit, and doesn't acknowledge the quickening beat in his chest when he picks up the phone to hear John ask if he’s eaten yet, if he’d like company. On the occasions that Perry or some other team in the Chicago field office throws John to the Marshals office like a sacrificial lamb, as though they think Sam's going to gut him, John will appear in Sam's doorway after everyone else has gone home, asking some version of the same questions. As though Sam ever says no.

And as the snow melts going into March, Sam is surprised to find that he's sleeping better now than he has in a long time. For the most part.

Sometimes, though, he dreams.

Sometimes, he dreams he's back in Collins' girlfriend's house. Sometimes he dreams that he fired twice only to step through the beaded curtain to see that his bullets have left Noah and John both bleeding out on the floor. Sometimes he dreams that John shoots the moment he steps into the hallway, staring straight at Sam with the cold determination of the Tennessee swamps, the bullet ripping through Sam's chest with the concussive force of a bowling ball, and he wakes up gulping down air. Sometimes he dreams that he sprints to the beaded curtain chasing the sound of gunshots and emerges to see Collins holding John in a choke hold, meeting Sam's eye as he kills John before raising a nickel-plated Taurus to blow a hole in Sam's forehead wearing Mark Sheridan's cruel smile. Sometimes he dreams that he doesn't spring out from behind the beaded curtain at all--that he's the one holding a nickel-plated Taurus to Noah's temple, that he pulls the trigger and feels Noah fall to the ground from his arms, looking up to meet John's horrified expression dead-on before slowly, deliberately, raising the Taurus to fire.

Sam only dreams once that he springs through the beaded curtain and neither Noah nor Collins are there at all. Just John, who puts away the Glock Sam told him to buy in relief when he sees it's Sam, starting to smile that soft smile Sam treasures in a secret corner of himself. He walks up smiling at John as he never does when awake, relieved that it's alright, reaching for John to breathe him in as he would never allow himself in the daylight, to reassure himself of John’s realness when the real John could never be so close. Instead his hands close around the Glock and he's twenty miles away in his own body, helpless as he feels a black chill rush out of his heart to raise the walls in his eyes and raise the gun in his hands as he has thousands of times in his life, pulling the trigger with the same clinical steadiness he had when he shot Collins, his ears echoing with the absolute certainty that he needs to do this, that he has no other choice.

He wakes up frozen through and doesn't sleep the rest of the night, calling too early in the morning to take a rain check via John's voicemail. He goes into work with such a dark cloud around him that even Cosmo stays away, and sleeps little at all for almost a week. By Friday, even John won't let him get away with stony silence and asks if he wants a night off from the dinner they had planned earlier in the week. Their tenth, not that Sam is counting. After a brief not-argument, John somehow talks him into having a drink in John's own apartment instead, on the bullshit notion of there being a game of some sort and that Sam wouldn't have to drive back after. Sam only realizes what's happened twelve minutes after the fact, suddenly furious with his own sluggish brain.

Still, by the time he leaves the office, Sam has settled with the notion. It will be soothing, he decides, to be away from people for a change, and the game will offer a pleasant distraction if he finds himself remembering blood spreading across John's chest. And in any case, Perry has just sent John to act as a go-between on another case two days ago, so he has work to hide behind if words should fail him.

He's even talked himself into it properly by the time he hits the buzzer. Which makes it all the worse that there's no answer.

He waits several minutes, then tries again. After a minute, John's voice filters through the speaker. "What?"

Not the welcome he was expecting. "It's Sam."

Silence, just long enough to make Sam think he's either interrupted something or is about to get tossed to the curb. "Oh, _shit_."

Has John forgotten? It's uncharacteristic, especially given the diligence with which he talked Sam into it this morning. "I can come back another time?"

John blows out a sigh, then says, "Push." Sam does, walking as if entering the home of an armed fugitive.

Sam knows the second John opens the door that something is different. His work shirt is gone, but the presence of a white undershirt and rumpled slacks gives the impression that he pulled off his tie and forgot to get much further. He looks at Sam without seeing him before turning on his heel to walk back into the apartment. Sam pads after him in silence, pausing only long enough to shed his coat before following where John vanished.

Said work shirt and tie are in a heap on the living room floor, alongside his suit jacket. John is a few feet away, perched on the edge of the couch and staring blankly at the coffee table. The only sign he's done anything beyond pull off his tie is the finger of whiskey and bottle of Jim Beam, which Sam knows had more in it the last time he was here. When John doesn't acknowledge him, Sam walks to the couch, sits just far enough away to beat a hasty retreat if necessary, and waits.

He waits long enough to think John has forgotten he's there. Then John says abruptly, "I won't be in to help on Monday." He's still staring at the coffee table like he doesn't know it exists. "Perry will send Hill instead." Sam has the feeling that isn't what he wants to say.

"Okay."

"I'll be back by Tuesday morning."

"Okay." When John doesn't continue, he says, "Can I ask why?"

"I have to fly to New York in the morning."

Those two words drop lead weights in Sam's chest. "Okay," he says again, even though he's increasingly certain it's not okay at all. "Everything alright?"

John closes his eyes and draws a deep breath in through his nose. It's shuddering when he lets it back out. "I have to go to a funeral on Sunday. A friend of mine, Thomas Abbott. He," John blinks and falters, frowning at his whiskey glass, "he died yesterday. I got the call at work."

That isn't what Sam dreaded to hear, but it's definitely worse. "I'm sorry," he says, immediately kicking himself for it. "What happened?"

He knows as soon as John hesitates and steels himself. "He shot himself." John's jaw shifts and he blinks hard, "He had just tested positive."

 _Christ_. Sam reaches out resting his fingers on John's shoulder. When he doesn't pull away, Sam grips his shoulder. Anchoring.

At first, John doesn't react. Then he sinks forward with his elbows on his knees, covering his face in his hands. He breathes in and out, long uneven breaths.

Sam waits.

It might be five minutes or five hours. Eventually, John exhales and scrubs his fingers into his eyes, lowering his hands to stare, once more, at his whiskey glass. He asks through his palms, "Did you ever know anyone?"

Sam doesn't ask which part he means. "A friend, Peter. He was HIV-positive when I met him."

John's eyes drift to Sam. They're startling in their vacancy, like they could swallow Sam whole. "Were you and he...?"

It isn't the question Sam expected. He's not quite sure what John will do with the answer, or if John himself knows. "No, but not because of that. We were always better as friends. Besides, his tastes ran to blue-eyed pretty boys who looked much better in suits."

That wins him a snort. It's probably reflexive, because John is quiet and still immediately. "Did he...?"

"I wouldn't know," Sam says. "He got married to a girl he grew up with and took a job at a prestigious law firm in L.A. ten years ago. I never saw him again." 

John doesn’t latch onto the word Sam expects. " _Married_ ," he repeats, as if sucking on a lemon. "What a joke. What a complete fucking joke."

On instinct, Sam pulls. John falls sideways into Sam's arms like he was always meant to fit there, his shoulders shaking.

Now that John's started talking, though, it seems that he can't stop. "I talked to him. On Wednesday. He had just gotten the results back and I could hear him pacing around his apartment. He said he didn't want to die like that." _That_ gets stuck in John's throat. Sam's not sure if it would be better or worse, having Thomas Abbott die now while he was healthy enough to choose it or years down the line in the hospital bed, a shell of himself, as a few of Sam's friends became. He's not sure whether living would have been for Thomas Abbott's benefit or for the benefit of those who weren't ready to let him go. As if it makes any difference that Thomas Abbott made a choice. As if changes the fact that he never deserved to die at all.

"You couldn't have known," Sam murmurs. As if it does any good to remind John that none of this was ever his fault.

He stays through the whole night, though neither of them sleep and his back aches something vicious, though he can't imagine how John's neck and shoulders must be furious for the hunched position he held against Sam all night. He drives John to the airport at his own insistence, making him promise to call if he needs without specifying what John might need. Sam is still more surprised when John does call the night after the funeral decidedly not sober, though they talk about nothing at all and sit mostly in silence breathing together for the better part of an hour.

Sam spends the weekend thinking of Peter as he hasn't in years. He hopes, though he's not sure for whose sake, that Peter did land in L.A., that he is married to Elizabeth who grew up a few houses over, that he's shuffling papers and ensuring rich people keep their money, that Elizabeth really didn't mind the blue-eyed painter they all knew Peter to be in love with, that the blue-eyed painter did follow them to L.A. after all. That he's healthy. That he's happy.

John returns from New York and shows up in the Marshals' office on Tuesday with case files and a weariness only funerals can inspire. Newman and Henry ask, not entirely joking, if Lamb means to steal back their pet FBI agent. Sam barks, "Royce!" as he passes and John falls into step with palpable relief, trailing after him into Sam's office where Hannah Hill is still cowering. Sam points and gruffly orders John to start unfucking that. He didn't think he was that much of a bastard on Monday, but then again, Hill is still cowering.

John's back and forth with the FBI all day, though he spends the entirety of it hiding in Sam's office, for which Hill is obviously grateful. It gives Sam time to observe when John and Hill aren't paying attention, in the privacy of his own mind. John has been to too many funerals in the last year or, perhaps, for his entire life. And yet, Sam suspects, he will pull through the other side bruised around the edges and aching for it but, all told, just fine. They'll be just fine, Sam thinks, except that they were never they, not even John and Sam.

The thought sticks for the rest of the day, a petty distraction. By the end of the day, he’s absently listening to John and Cosmo chatter as they all walk out of the office to meet the rest of the team at McRory's, Hill wavering near John like she's not sure whether to hide behind him. A female voice shouts, "John!"

John's head whips in the direction of a redhead in scrubs running up to him. He's not at all surprised when she hugs him, though Cosmo and Sam certainly are. More surprising still is Sam's sudden and overwhelming impulse to break something.

"I tried to call before you left," the redhead says into John's shoulder, breaking the hug. Her eyes are startlingly blue and clouded with concern. "I heard about Thomas. God, I'm so sorry."

"It's alright, Annie," John replies. Sam contemplates the merits of cuffing her for mentioning the funeral when John was only just starting to brighten, but the urge to break something wins out when she hugs John again. Worse still when he hugs back.

It takes a second for them to recall that Cosmo, Sam, and Hill are still awkwardly standing there, which is a second too long for Sam to school his features into something like they're supposed to look. John gestures between them, as though they needed clarity. "Sam, Cosmo, Hill, this is Dr. Eastman." He says it like there's a joke in there somewhere, confirmed when the redhead side-eyes him.

"Just Annie," she says, shaking their hands. Sam somehow shakes her hand without gritting his pleasantries through his teeth. Then Just Annie turns back to John. "I'm off tonight--let me buy you a drink?"

"Actually, we were--"

"No, no," Sam surprises himself, both by speaking up and the agreeableness of his own voice, "go ahead. We'll catch up some other time."

John flickers between Annie and Sam. Sam can hear Cosmo thinking next to him, which is always a bad sign. "You sure?"

Sam nods, making himself smile. "You'll see plenty of our mugs at work."

John looks suspicious, then nods and draws himself in Annie's direction. "Catch you tomorrow then."

Annie waves as they turn around, which Cosmo returns. "You think she's...?" Cosmo asks, frowning in their direction. Sam's not sure what he meant to finish the sentence with.

"How should I know?" he snaps, shaking his head hard and striding so that Cosmo has to jog to catch up, dragging Hill after him.

Sam skips running the next morning to show up unusually early at work, which means he's already up to his elbows in files when John does reappear bringing Perry and coffee in tow. He looks considerably freshened, which somehow makes Sam's mood even worse.

He sets down coffee near Sam's elbow, which Sam ignores. "Someone's cheerful today," John mutters.

He really shouldn't ask. And yet apparently, he can't help himself. "How's Annie?"

John takes a long drink of coffee, coughing a little at the heat. "Fine. Showed me a dive bar the residents at Cook County like."

"Which is that?"

John rattles off a name. Sam remembers that he doesn't actually care, and flicks through one of the files like it's suddenly fascinating.

"You're looking for this," John says, holding out a folder. Sam snatches it from his hands. "Thanks, by the way."

"For?"

"For being understanding. It's been too long since I caught up with her."

"You don't need my permission."

John blinks, then sets down the file to look at Sam with a sudden seriousness Sam doesn't like. "I've known Annie Eastman since I was two," he says carefully, as though offering a bone to an angry dog. "There's nothing going on there, Sam."

"It's none of my business if there was," Sam replies, and brusquely changes the subject. John looks peeved for the rest of the conversation, which does little for Sam's irritation.

Because really, it's none of Sam's business. It's absolutely none of Sam's business how John chooses to spend his time. It's none of his business if John gets a drink with Annie Eastman. And it's certainly none of Sam's business, an unkind voice in his head whispers, if John should choose to get a drink with another man, or have dinner with another man, or do anything else with another man, for that matter. Especially because Sam has made it his business to avoid any and all indication that John Royce might be interested in him as anything other than a friend.

And that's the problem, isn't it?

It has occurred to him, more than once over the last several months, that John Royce might be wooing him. He doesn't let himself wonder whether John spends anywhere near as much time with other people, even though any swift calculation says he doesn't. He also doesn't let himself wonder about those times (too many, not enough) that John is just a bit too close, that John lingers just a little too long, that John looks like he's waiting for a cue from Sam that doesn't come.

He can't let himself wonder. And he certainly can't let John pursue it if that is the case, no matter how much the angry animal in his bones snarls otherwise, no matter how much John might think he knows what he's doing. No matter how much John thinks Sam is a good idea. Sam knows better. And so Sam stays away.

The burning thread of jealousy wrapped around his neck, though, is another story. He tries, he really does, to carry on as he has for months. But that thread tightens around his neck and strangles all the words out wrong until a week goes by where he snaps at John for almost anything. It doesn't help that John gets progressively angrier with every successive day Sam refuses to explain himself. After a week of alternating between frigid silence and being at each other's throats, Sam chants in his head that it's better this way, that it's safer this way, that John should learn he's an utter bastard before experience has the chance to prove it so that he can learn to despise Sam as so many people do and keep his distance where Sam can't hurt him. He's called into a budget meeting shortly after reminding himself of these facts and takes vicious pleasure in ripping the finance suits to tatters, swapping between the pair of them whenever one of the Christians gets the bright idea to try to save his helpless compatriot from the lion. Sam can practically feel Walsh dissecting him in her head, which is a problem he'll have to deal with eventually, though she doesn't do anything to curb his ill temper.

It's a relief to get a call for a fugitive on a Thursday, though he's captured by late afternoon. It still gets Sam's team out of the office, giving them breathing space to get back in sync. Sam can almost convince himself he's cheerful, or at least in better spirits. He knows as soon as Walsh calls him into her office upon return that he's full of shit.

"Don't make weekend plans," Walsh says as soon as he steps through the door.

Sam considers asking why she thought he had any, but that sounds entirely too bitter and pathetic. "Why is that?"

"Judge O'Connor just got another death threat."

Sam sinks into a chair, keeping his eyes steady on Walsh. "Are you suggesting that my team may have missed something last time?"

"No. You handled it brilliantly. But the mob has a way of hiring hitmen, and these trials are about to be a pain in their ass." Walsh tosses him a file, which he catches just before it hits him in the face. "There's a charity function at the Hilton & Towers Hotel on Saturday evening. The judge is expected to attend, and she plans to go."

"No she doesn't."

"Yes, she does."

"Is she eager to get shot?"

"She doesn't want the mob to know they can scare her."

"By letting them shoot her instead?"

"Sam."

"Catherine." Walsh glares, but Sam glares back. "Two days isn't enough time. That hotel is a damn nightmare and you know it."

"Yes, I do," Walsh replies evenly. Sam's stomach sinks. "Which is why Agent Perry’s team and Chicago PD will assist."

Sam can't help the growl that slips between his teeth. "Want me to invite Langley? Get the whole damn gang together?"

"Stop it Sam," Walsh snaps. "We can't force her into protection. She's trying a spate of Gambino cases for the FBI. They need her alive and Perry has been chasing the Gambino cases for a long time. Even if I could try to clean up the mess and keep Chicago PD away, we need the manpower. And you know as well as I do that this might be our best shot at smoking the bastard out."

Sam does know that. He just wishes it were anyone, _anyone_ , but Perry's team.

"Is there a problem, Sam?"

"No," he says, standing to make his retreat. "No problem."

Walsh doesn't believe him, but she doesn't press. After all, they've got a judge to protect.

Perry and his team arrive within the hour, along with two organized crime detectives tasked with manning the CPD side--Kelly and Rosetti. Kelly is a schoolyard bully if ever Sam's met one, and Rosetti the scrawny limpet at the bully's side who was allowed to grow up and lose his hair. Sam takes two ibuprofen from his desk before he leaves, wishing he had more than four hours of sleep to deal with this.

"What have we got, people?" he barks, sending Hill a foot in the air. Perry needs to teach her to have a spine.

"Nothing much," Perry replies, working on coffee like it's not five p.m.

"The hell do you mean nothing much?" Sam says, dropping into a chair.

"What I said, Gerard." Perry's voice is already testy, hitting just the right pitch to make Sam's headache worse. "There's been no chatter from any of our bugs. There's plenty of bosses who'd be happy to be rid of the judge, but we can't prove that any of them put out word to make it happen."

"Then how do we know it's a mob hit?"

"She's about to try four of the biggest Gambino players in Chicago over the next several months." This from John, throwing a file in the vicinity of Sam's head where Sam snatches it out of the air. "Who else would it be?"

"Glad to know we're at such a high level of deductive reasoning." Sam rubs the bridge of his nose, wishing he'd taken more than two ibuprofen as he watches Biggs pin up blueprints of the Hilton & Towers. "There better be a rainbow and gold in those damn blueprints, Biggs, or I'm about to get cranky."

"This is you cheerful?" John mutters into his coffee. Sam ignores him to glare at the blueprints.

"Sorry, Sam," Biggs says. "Don't know who booked Hilton & Towers, but they weren't thinking about us when they did."

"Christ on a crutch." This from Cosmo, somewhere beyond Sam's right shoulder. "Hilton & Towers? You've got to be kidding me."

"Talk me through it, Biggs," Sam sighs. He's immediately sorry he asked.

Since they can't discount the staff or the guests, they'll have to keep an eye on everyone, which means its not enough to secure the lobby. The lobby lets out in at least four directions, not counting the second-story gallery looking over the lobby and the staff entrances. The kitchen alone is a labyrinth, to say nothing of the staff hallways, and if the judge plans to stay for the duration of the party, they'll have to account for the ballroom too, which opens another list of entrances and exits. Sam's headache gets worse with every successive sentence.

"So, to be clear," he growls to the room at large, "we've got no leads, double the names to verify, a hotel that's practically made to lose a hitman, and not enough bodies to cover it."

"And two days to do it," John quips.

Sam wishes he had the entire bottle of ibuprofen. He settles for a death glare at John. "You want to be helpful, Royce, or do you want to keep talking my ear off?"

John’s answering glare is icy. They’re not arguing about the hotel and they both know it. "Well I'm sorry you can't shoot this problem to make it go away, I'm sure that's frustrating for you.”

There's a solid five seconds of silence in which Sam can hear at least three people chanting _fuck, fuck, fuck._ He stands and takes a step toward John and runs straight into Poole, who shoves him in the direction of the coffee machine. Sam storms to the break room with just enough time to see Poole turn to John with murder in her eyes.

The only thing Sam and Perry can seem to agree on is their mutual irritation with Kelly and Rosetti, who seem to think they're in charge. Sam bullies Kelly right back every time he tries to throw his weight around, and by the end of Friday even Hill looks like she'd like to separate the good detectives’ heads from their necks. Walsh ships Sam to Kelly and Rosetti's precinct late Saturday afternoon, nominally to terrorize the troops into marching order but mostly, Sam suspects, to give everyone an hour's respite from Sam and John sniping at each other. Walsh sends Cosmo with him, nominally to keep Sam updated but mostly to keep him from antagonizing Kelly and Rosetti.

He sets foot in Kelly and Rosetti's precinct and prowls into a large meeting room full of cops drafted for the evening like the wrath of God. A wave of tiredness hits him just looking at them--there are far too many of them to keep this under control, but there's no way they can manage security otherwise. He keeps his spine a steel rod and his eyes arctic as he walks to the podium. The cops who have met with or been warned of Deputy Gerard immediately straighten in their seats.

By the time Sam finishes, all of them are ramrod straight and religiously taking notes, as if Sam is going to skin them alive if he notices anyone slacking. He really doesn't know why they think that when shooting them would be much more expedient.

Somehow, miraculously, Kelly and Rosetti follow Sam's orders to stand there and shut up, though Kelly can't resist adding at the end that he's donating a twelve-year-old bottle of scotch to whoever puts the collar on this clown.

 _Since when is this a gangster movie?_ Sam thinks, but Cosmo hails him and hauls him out of the precinct before he can comment.

The Hilton is, as Sam expected, a nightmare.

There are too many doors and even more people. They have to close most of the doors and funnel everyone through two doors in the front, where they pass through metal detectors and match IDs to invitations. Even with CPD, they're almost hilariously outnumbered, in part because one-third of the CPD force is dedicated to checking the hotel and catering staff. Between the bottleneck and the din of chatter, they can barely hear themselves think, much less hear the radios. Sam scans the room again, verifying for the fifth time in an hour that the judge is still parked at the bar corner with Kelly and Rosetti, John and Wang stationed slightly further away to cut off anyone before they can get close.

"Seen anyone yet?" Sam barks into his radio.

"Nothing, Sam," Cosmo replies from the second-floor gallery.

"Everyone's in penguin suits," Henry mutters, just beyond the door. "How are we supposed to spot anyone suspicious?"

"I don't care who _looks_ suspicious, I want you to find me a guy angling to shoot the judge."

"Are you expecting Sammy Gravano to walk through the front door?" John's voice crackles over his radio, his annoyance no less audible.

"Shut _up_ , Royce," Perry snaps.

It would be easier if Sammy Gravano walked through the door. Then again, nothing in Sam's life is that easy. He scans the room again wondering how the hell they're going to keep an eye on everyone in this din when movement catches his eye--one of the hotel staff, making a beeline for Kelly and Rosetti. "Biggs," he says into the radio.

"I see her," Biggs says, moving to head her off.

Sam sees John drift toward Biggs and the hotel clerk. Two seconds observation says he's not going to like what he hears.

"We've got a problem," John says over the radio. Sam sighs.

"Tell me something I don't know."

"One of the clerks is missing," Biggs says, eyeing the rest of the lobby. "The staff is panicking, they think he's the guy."

"How do they know we're looking for a guy?" Sam snaps.

"We can't let anyone else in here." This from John, who's already vanished back into the crowd.

"Perry? Henry? You got that? No one else comes in."

"On it," Perry says. Sam can barely see him at the doors, can barely hear him telling his agents not to lock them all inside.

Sam shoves his way through the crowd to make for the ballroom doors, punching at his radio as he walks. "Kelly, Rosetti, get the judge secured in the ballroom with CPD around the doors. Don't let anyone in that's not us." A few people complain at the elbows he uses, but he pushes through nonetheless, emerging at the ballroom doors as if escaping an overcrowded fish net.

"You want us back out here?" Kelly replies, he and Rosetti herding Judge O'Connor toward the ballroom doors. Sam swoops across them and pulls them all shut in turn, except one, which he yanks open to shove them through.

"What part of secure the judge in the ballroom involved coming back out here?" he snarls, ushering Wang and Burkhardt in after them. "Get the judge secured in the bar by the corner and don't move until we say so." He shuts the door on their heels, holding the radio up to his face to be heard. "Newman, get CPD on the doors. Cosmo, keep an eye on the gallery and meet them up there. Royce, where the hell are you?"

He doesn't hear where the hell John is, because there are three shots and a wave of screams. He whirls around to find the lobby dissolved into chaos, people trying to flow back out through the doors, around the sides deeper into the hotel, up the gallery stairs.

Except one guest, standing in the middle of the lobby like a statue. It’s a young gunman, a kid really, lucky if he’s Newman’s age, wearing a suit that doesn’t match the rest of the room, a suit he clearly doesn’t know how to wear. Sam has a split second to wonder when the mob started hiring rookie assassins to kill their judges, because it would take a stupider mob than the Gambino family to send a rookie to slip through the Marshals, the FBI, and CPD. He moves forward, catching the shooter’s eye, and then the .22 mm is lowered from the ceiling to point squarely at Sam.

If asked, Sam would guess by the way the kid’s hand shakes that he's never actually fired the gun before ten seconds ago. Still, there's a chance he might shoot Sam by accident out of panic. He holds his hands up near his head where the kid can see them, radio still in hand, taking a cautious step forward.

The shooter tenses immediately, like a startled cat. “Stay there.” Sam halts his progress, just enough to be noticeable.

"Alright, kid," he says, in a show of calm cooperation. So long as the shooter stays focused on Sam, he'll likely only hit Sam or the ballroom doors. So long as the shooter stays calm, he probably won't fire, at least not right away, which will hopefully give his kids enough time to close in. Sam can only pray Burkhardt and Wang have the judge under guard.

"Don’t call me kid.” His voice is angry but wavering. He didn’t plan on a Marshal getting in the way, and he didn't expect Sam to be calm. That's good. Sam can use that.

"Alright," he replies. “What’s your name?”

The kid seems to realize it was a bad idea to make Sam ask his name, because his mouth presses into a thin white line. The gun isn’t any steadier though. The kid didn’t plan on hurting a Marshal to hurt the judge--Sam would bet money he’s never killed anyone in his life. There’s no way he’s mob, not for a job like this.

"You know this won't work, " Sam takes a step forward, then another. "So why don't you put the gun down?"

The kid tenses suddenly, looking to Sam's right, and within seconds he knows why--John, materializing with his gun raised at the shooter’s chest, stepping directly in front of Sam.

There's a half second of blind terror like Sam hasn't had since his first week in the Marshals Service, then fury, both of which he traps behind a wall of calm impassivity. _I'm going to kill him myself_.

"Come on, sir," John says. His hands, unlike the kid's, are steady as a surgeon.

Sam wings out carefully to John's left, drawing his gun. The kid’s gaze darts to him. "Look at me," John snaps, "unless you want to get shot."

The kid’s eyes flick back to John, though he's still watching Sam. John can see Sam in his periphery, Sam knows, but that's not Sam's problem right now.

"Look at me, sir," John says, calm in the eye of the mayhem, as if hypnotizing a snake. "Chicago police have the judge. You can't get through the FBI and the Marshals."

Sam inches closer, almost imperceptibly. From the corner of his eye, Poole inches forward in tandem.

"Sir," John calls. "You know this won't end well for you. Just put it down and no one has to get hurt, alright?"

He can hear Chicago PD running toward the gallery. When they get there, he knows, they're going to draw their guns.

Apparently the same thought has occurred to John. "Chicago police are coming and they will shoot you if you shoot me. Just put the gun down and we can all walk out of here, alright?"

Sam can see the exact moment he makes the decision, when his brain ticks through Marshals, FBI, and Chicago PD all with guns pointed at him with the promise of nothing at the other side but prison or the possibility that Chicago PD might shoot him anyway. He can hear the exact moment John sees it too, because the tenor of his voice changes. "Listen to me!" he says, but his voice is higher, tighter. He's pleading, but he's not pleading with the kid anymore. "It doesn't have to be like this. Just listen to me and put it down--

Sam and Poole both spring the second he raises the gun, the second his kids shout _hold your fire_ , taking him down in a heap, feeling as much as hearing the shockwave of the .22 going off. Poole wrests the gun away and shoves it across the floor to Newman as Sam catches one arm angling for his eye, forces the kid to turn over with Poole trapping his other arm. "He hit you?" Sam asks as they haul him up, now terrified and helpless against their grip and the cuffs.

"No. You're bleeding."

Lo and behold, there's a warm trickle of blood on his arm. "Just grazed me. Get him out of here." He leaves the kid to Poole's hands. Biggs roars for everyone to put their damn guns away. The sound of footsteps at his back reminds Sam why his heart is thumping for a marathon, and he whirls in John's face practically vibrating in rage. "If you _ever_ block my line of fire like that again, I'll kill you myself."

"I wasn't blocking your line of fire, you stone cold sonofa _bitch_ ," John's voice raises through the sentence into a shout, his fury raising Sam's hackles further.

" _Sam!_ " Cosmo yells from across the room. Someone's hand--Newman--grabs his arm and hauls him bodily toward Cosmo as Hill drags John in the opposite direction. He all but throws Newman off, prowling across the room like he'd like to break everything in it and then Judge O'Connor for bringing them all here.

Sam snarls at everyone with the misfortune of crossing his path, leaving the Chicago PD a quivering heap in his wake, going for Kelly and Rosetti's throats every time they fail to be helpful, ripping into Perry's kids and Perry himself for failing to consider that it might not be a mob hit at all, even the paramedic who patches his arm. When it's clear there's nothing more for Sam to do besides get himself in more trouble than he can handle, Biggs and Henry march him to his car, trap him in the driver's side, and tell him they'll call if they need anything.

Sam's apartment is dark and cold. He pours a large glass of whiskey and forgets it on the counter, pacing the apartment like a caged animal. Every coherent thought is chased out of his brain by the memory of John stepping in front of him, and every time he remembers, he turns sharply to pace in the opposite direction, clipping his knees on the edges of his furniture more than once. By the fourth time he can feel the beginnings of bruises.

After an hour, his not-peace is over. "Open the door, Sam," John's voice shouts at him from his intercom, reminding him why he poured a whiskey in the first place. "I know you're up there."

Sam punches the button before John can shout again. "Don't break my door. Push."

He opens his front door just long enough to see John standing there, turning to retreat to his whiskey glass. The bottle is nowhere near full enough.

"What the _fuck_ is your problem?" John snarls at Sam's back, right on Sam's heels all the way into the kitchen.

"My problem?" Sam snarls right back. "I'm not the one who stepped in my line of fire."

" _I wasn't blocking your line of fire, you stupid bastard!_ " John's entire body is a single line of tension. "I was blocking his."

"And then he would've shot you instead of me just because two agents made him tetchy. Fantastic plan." Sam downs his whiskey in one go, wishing it would burn hot enough to fry the last 72 hours out of his brain.

Sadly, it can't burn John Royce out of his kitchen. "So it's fine for you to get shot but not anyone else? Because the great Sam Gerard is fucking indestructible?"

The whiskey glass slams onto the table. "I can take care of myself."

" _Bullshit_ , Sam. You call this," John throws his arms wide to the room at large, "taking care of yourself? Because from where I'm standing you're just looking for someone to shoot you."

There's a dull roar in Sam's ears and a black chill in his veins. "Fuck off, Royce."

"Yeah, figured," John laughs, a low, ugly sound. "What the fuck are we arguing about, Sam?"

"We're arguing about you being stupid."

"No," John snaps, "we're arguing about the stick you've had up your ass for weeks and your apparently irresistible impulse to get in the way of bullets. So I'm not leaving until you tell me what the fuck your problem is."

"Why don't you ask Annie Eastman?" Sam isn't proud to rediscover his petty streak. He's also too angry to care, especially if it makes John leave.

John blinks and stares at Sam like he's stupider than John ever imagined. "Annie Eastman knows I'm gay." It's taking all of John's effort not to start shouting again. Sam wishes he would. "She's known for ten years. And she's the one who told me to stop being a coward and pursue you."

So he has Annie Eastman to thank for this. "More the fool her."

"If that was the case, why am I in your kitchen in the middle of the night arguing with you about Annie Eastman?"

"More the fool you, I suppose." Sam skips the glass and swallows from the bottle, setting it down with enough force to rattle the table. It was easier when they were arguing about a shooter.

"Tell me she was wrong." John's eyes burn holes into Sam's face. "Tell me I'm imagining this. Say those words and I'll go away."

"Yes," Sam grits through his teeth.

"Liar."

"Yeah," he says, feeling a lead weight lift from his lungs with that single word even as a siren screams in his brain, "yeah I am."

The tension drains out of John and he sags against Sam's kitchen counter, even as the tension he lost pools in Sam's gut. "Well thank God."

 _God has nothing at all to do with this_ , Sam thinks. It takes most of his focus to keep his black wall of all those years of discretion in his face. "I said you weren't imagining this. Not that I'm going to do anything about it."

The sound John makes is somewhere between a groan and an exasperated scream. "Why?" Sam focuses on his wall, on keeping his emotions out of his face even as all of John's emotions play out in front of him. He's so young, so hopeful, so _sure_ that somehow this could work out in their favor, and it's more terrifying than any murderer with a gun leveled at Sam's head. "Give me one good reason why you shouldn't do anything about it."

Sam could write books of reasons why, but none of them will get John to give up. So he looks John dead in the eye, holds himself still as the grave, and says the one thing he's certain will get John to punch him and flee back to safety. "I'm not Daniel Ward."

"Jesus _Christ_ , Sam." John surges forward into Sam's space. Sam braces for the punch.

It doesn't come. Instead, John kisses him as if he'd like to suffocate Sam in the process, all teeth and pressure and pushing himself into every spare millimeter Sam gives.

There's one awful moment when Sam melts. Then his hands clench around John's shoulders and he shoves himself away, stumbling back to crash into his kitchen table, gulping down air that isn't enough to make up for the fist squeezing all the blood out of his chest. His ears ring and he stares at the floor so John can't see his traitor heart bleeding out on the tile.

 _You have to do this_ , he chants in his head. He can't breathe through the lump in his throat. _You have to do this_.

"Well, then." John's voice is cold enough to break what's left of Sam. Sam screws his eyes shut. Then John is walking away, toward the door, out of Sam's life to where he belongs. Where Sam can't ruin him.

Sam darts after him like a dog on a leash. He catches John's shoulder as John's hand closes around the doorknob. John has a split second to look over his shoulder with his face twisted in anger and hurt before Sam uses all his strength to pull John into the wall beside the door, rushing into John's space to pin him there with his chest and his arms bracketing John's shoulders.

Then Sam kisses John, with the relief and desperation of a drowning man coming up for air.

John responds immediately with a low whine in his throat and a hand at Sam's jaw, deepening the kiss like it's going to stop if he doesn't, as if Sam could pull away now. Suddenly he shoves Sam back into the opposite wall, knocking the air out of Sam's lungs and pressing into the vacuum so he can't breathe anything but John.

Sam breaks away from where John's mouth is working over his throat, trapping John with fingers curled into the roots of his hair so he can breathe into the shell of John's ear. "Are you clean?"

"Yeah," comes the breath back. "You?"

" _Yes_ ," Sam hisses, closing his teeth and his tongue over John's earlobe for the answering stutter of breath that follows.

They move through the apartment without seeing into Sam's room, shedding clothes haphazard through the living room as they go like they can't manage it quick enough. They fall into Sam's bed as one and fuck the same way they argue--fast and hard, scraping teeth and nails and holding tightly enough to bruise, always pushing and pulling, each exploring just to find some new inch to steal into the other's space, to see how much they can take and how much they can take from each other.

Sam's blood thrums in his veins, alive, alive, alive. He's alive. John's alive. He bites down hard on the junction of John's neck and shoulder just to feel John's answering cry in his teeth, to feel John's arms tighten around him like a cage, forbidding Sam from letting go.

And when it's over, when John collapses on top of him, Sam has only enough sense left to feel John's panting breath against his shoulder, John's heartbeat against his spine, the weight and warmth of John keeping him there. Then John rolls off Sam to the far side of the bed, and promptly falls asleep, as distant and alone as he's ever been.

Sam blinks at him in the dark. One hand reaches out, ghosting along John's ribs and shoulders. He runs his knuckles up John's shoulders, resting his fingers in John's hair, assuring himself that John is real. John shivers in his sleep and resettles his head away from Sam's touch, and Sam withdraws his hand.

John sleeps on, but Sam doesn't. He lays there wide awake well into the dull gray hours of dawn, with the steady drumbeat thought _what have I done?_ He doesn't have an answer, just John, asleep so very far away.

So when dawn finally peers over the horizon, Sam does what he does best. He runs.

He returns from running fifteen miles in circles to find John gone and Cosmo sitting at his table, drinking his coffee. "How the hell did you get in here, Renfro?"

"Your neighbor let me in," Cosmo says, pushing a mug in Sam's direction. "Nice lady. Says thank you for the banana bread."

"That doesn't explain how you got through my front door." Sam drops into the chair Cosmo kicks out but sets to untying his running shoes instead of drinking the coffee.

"What you don't know won't hurt you."

"Get out before I call the cops."

"I am the cops."

Sam kicks his shoes to a far corner of the kitchen. "What do you want, Cosmo?"

"To talk." Cosmo pushes the coffee closer to Sam's hand. He grabs it and takes a long drink, drowning out a fraction of the exhausted rattle between his ears. "Have you slept at all? You look like shit."

"Thanks. I will call the cops."

"Good for you." Cosmo examines Sam's face with an intensity that invariably means he's been chewing on something for a while. "We're worried about you."

"Who's we?" Sam sighs into his coffee, even though he can already guess.

"Me. Biggs. Henry. Newman."

"Not Poole?"

"Poole wants to kick your ass. Then she's worried about you."

"So this is an intervention, then?" Sam folds his arms and leans into his chair. There's no sign of John or last night in his kitchen, and it leaves his bones raw. "I'm touched."

"Sam." He knows by the tone that Cosmo won't be deterred, not this time. "You look like you haven't slept in a month. You've been biting everyone's heads off for weeks, especially Royce. You're pissing people off when you need favors. You're barely toeing the line with Walsh. You're stepping in front of people with guns when you don't need to."

"He was going to shoot the judge."

"He had his gun pointed. The doors were closed. He'd clearly never held a gun before. He would have been lucky to hit the judge by accident."

"I had a clear shot if I needed one."

"No, you had your hands up and away from your gun and then Royce stepped in the way." Cosmo stares at Sam, waiting, but when Sam just stares back he sighs. "What's going on?"

He really is worried. Sam takes a long drink of his coffee to hide his face, his ears still ringing with _Royce_. "Nothing's going on."

"Bull."

Sam sets his coffee down on the table and his head in his hands, digging his fingers into his eyes. Lets out a long breath, not long enough or stable enough to take the echoes of John with it.

A hand finds its way to his arm, holding on like he can hold Sam up. "Just tell us what to do, Sammy." Cosmo's voice is softer than Sam's heard in a while. The gentleness Cosmo uses on interviews when the person across from him might break if he says the wrong thing.

"There's nothing you can do," Sam says into his hands. "It's my mess to clean."

"Then it's our mess, too."

"No, it isn't." Sam drags his hands down to rest his mouth in his palms, looking at the table in front of him and not Cosmo beside him. His eyelids feel like sandpaper. "I'll have my shit together by Monday."

"We're not worried about you having your shit together, Sam. We're worried about you."

"Thanks, Cosmo."

"Anytime. You idiot."

Cosmo isn't at all soothed when he leaves, but there's nothing much Sam can do about that. He needs about fifteen years of sleep to untangle the mess of the last week. He settles for a scalding shower and a hummingbird cake for Mrs. Rosen to bring to her Sunday afternoon bridge game.

He arrives Monday morning to find his kids have mopped up as much as they can, doing a tidy job of it too. He owes them an apology, he knows. He starts by holding up a box of doughnuts, dispersing favorites before making his way to his office to start unfucking things.

Walsh has more than a few choice words for him. Three of them are spoken loud enough for the entire office to flinch. But she still backs him when he gets on the phone with Chicago PD, so his lack of graces will eventually be forgiven. He'll have to grovel for a while, but it's not the first time.

Perry and his team appear at eleven shortly after he hangs up with Kelly and Rosetti in tow, and the entire office gets suspiciously quiet. Walsh doesn't comment when he pauses for a breath, though her face says _don't fuck this up_. Sam collects the second doughnut box from his desk and walks to where his kids and Perry's kids have set up. Burkhardt and Wang look like they're waiting for Sam to pick a fight. Hill looks like she wants to run away. He can feel his kids watching him. The sharp press of John's clothes doesn't hide how his face is worn thin with exhaustion, and he doesn't look up when Sam approaches.

"Since when does the mob hire amateur hour to kill a judge?" Sam says, pushing the box in the middle of Perry's team and taking his seat across from the board.

"They don't," Perry says.

"Shame," Henry mutters, "that would make our jobs more fun."

"Speak for yourself," Sam says.

The entire office exhales.

It takes the better part of an hour debriefing for everyone to gradually stop walking on eggshells, though they're still eyeing Sam and John. His kids give him shit, but anyone who knows them knows they're being surprisingly gentle, as if Sam has a migraine they don't want to aggravate. He scared them, he realizes. Properly scared them this time. The realization turns his stomach sour, and he stops picking at his coffee for the rest of the meeting.

The worst, though, is John. He spends most of the meeting nursing his coffee in silence, speaking only when addressed and using full sentences only when asked a question. He won't look at Sam at all.

As it turns out, the shooter wasn't the mob, didn't have anything to do with the mob at all. He’s the son of a man Judge O'Connor convicted almost a year ago--wrongfully, in the son's eyes, and the son sold his house and donated all of the sale money to a children’s hospital to get a ticket and prove how wrong Judge O’Connor was. The bigger issue now is that they can't afford to relax, not when the mob might try to slip something by while the FBI and Marshals are distracted. They're going to have to keep her protected until the trials are over. Perry cedes control to the Marshals Service without protest, given the mess of Gambino cases the FBI is still wading through, but Kelly and Rosetti aren't so easy.

"You think we're not up to our necks in Gambino cases too?" Kelly says, in a querulous tone that must have sent every kid on his playground running. "CPD handled protection on Saturday, we can handle it through the trials."

Sam considers going home and setting his alarm for sometime next year. Maybe he'll get a few hours of sleep between then and now. "Sure," he says, "let's talk about Saturday, shall we?" To his own ears, his voice sounds tired, but there's enough warning in it that Newman and Cosmo's ears prick at the prospect of good fun.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means the hotel staff knew something was up before we secured the judge. Even if there was a hired gun in there, he may have gotten wind and jumped ship." Sam stares at Kelly with dead eyes. "Now how might that have happened?"

It takes a second, then Kelly splutters. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," Sam says, in a tone normally reserved for _please_ and _thank you_ , hearing Walsh's lecture to stay on his best behavior. "I'm telling you that the Marshals Service will handle Judge O'Connor's protection detail, as the Marshals Service has always done in accordance with our responsibilities under law. Since CPD is already up to their necks in Gambino cases." Best behavior, not out of character.

"Hang on," Rosetti says. Sam prefers the bulldog to the limpet. "How do you know it wasn't one of you?"

Sam narrows his eyes. "Perry and his team were living under our desks until Saturday evening. They barely talked to anyone else. Same for my team. Only ones I can't account for are the CPD. And as I recall, Perry's team handled the situation rather well." His eyes flick to John, then back again. "Agent Royce went out of his way to ensure no one got shot, including our shooter. I can't say the same for CPD." He leans back in his chair, staring at Kelly and Rosetti without expression. "So with all due respect, boys, we'll take it from here." He hears Biggs cough to his right, earning an unsubtle elbow from Henry.

It still takes the entire morning to sort out the mess. He catches Perry before his team ships back to their own offices and offers to buy them a round at McRory's for their trouble, since the good booze at this weekend's nightmare was tragically off-limits. Perry asks what the hell he's done with Deputy Gerard. Sam tells him not to push it.

He still looks up to find that John has vanished.

Sam waits until everyone has gone home--not hard, given the messes he has to mop up and how little he seems to be able to focus on them. Waits until he's certain John is probably home. Then he drives to his own apartment and walks four blocks. John's car is in front of his apartment, and Sam makes himself walk up and press the buzzer before he can think twice.

After a moment, he tries again. "John?"

Nothing. "John let me in. Please. We need to talk."

The door buzzes to let him in. Sam pushes.

John opens the door in an old NYU t-shirt, jeans, and a completely blank expression. Without the armor of his suit, he doesn't look like he's slept any more than Sam.

For a moment, Sam thinks he won't be let in. Then John turns on his heel and walks back into the apartment. Sam trails after him to find him in the kitchen, halfway through chopping vegetables.

Sam leans against the counter across the way and watches John's back, wary of the silence. "You said we needed to talk," John says, addressing the carrot in front of him. "So talk. Or get out."

"I'm sorry."

John looks like Sam just spoke Mandarin. "I didn't know those words were in your vocabulary."

"I'm full of surprises," Sam retorts, even though he apologizes to no man, ever.

"What are you apologizing for?"

"Pick one and we'll start there."

John returns to the vegetables, but he cuts down harder than before. "Do you have any idea," John says, as if they're discussing the possibility of clouds on Wednesday, "how terrifying it was to see you step in front of him?"

A fair enough place. "I didn't mean to scare you."

John snorts. "I'm a big boy. FBI agent, even. I can handle a scare."

That's not quite it. "I didn't want him to hurt anyone."

"Except you," comes the retort. "Because it's fine for Sam Gerard to get killed in the line of duty."

Almost, but not quite. Sam takes a breath and says, carefully, "You were thinking of Abbott, weren't you?"

John's shoulders stiffen, but he makes himself continue chopping. A fine mist of hurt from Saturday night, from the past several weeks, crystallizes around them. "That's not your concern."

"I'm not Thomas Abbott, John."

"You seem to keep defining yourself by who you're not." John sets down his knife and spins to face Sam, mimicking his position by leaning against the counter. "Then who are you, Sam?"

Funny, how Sam's entire life can be defined by what he's not. "I'm not brave, for one thing."

"Somehow, I doubt that." John's voice is soft against Sam's face "And somehow, I think your kids would doubt that too."

"That's different."

"Why is it different?" John steps forward, angling his head to make Sam meet his gaze. "Why is it so wrong to be brave now?"

"Because I can't protect you," Sam says. _What about this don't you understand?_ "You don't have the insulation I do. I’ve been Deputy Marshal a long time, and even the people who hate me can’t argue with my performance. Only place for me to go from here is Walsh's job, and I don't want it. All you have is your sharp elbows and your smart mouth and your utter lack of political skill to make up for either of them." John snorts, but Sam presses on. "If anyone found out, if anyone said something, they could destroy you. The entire bright future you're building for yourself, all gone because of me."

"You idiot." Two fingers catch Sam's jaw to turn his head. John's old oak eyes are warm enough to fall into. "Has it never once occurred to you that I'm just as responsible for my role in this as you are?"

"You think I'm worth it now. I'm not." John's face tightens, but Sam presses on. "I'm not. You're kidding both of us if you think otherwise."

"I have just as much of a right to decide that as you do, Sam." John's voice is as quiet and determined as the palm he rests against Sam's face, his thumb running along Sam's cheekbone.

Sam turns his head to press a kiss into John's palm, because he's not as strong in the moment as he'd like to think he is and kissing John is the only easy thing about this. He closes his eyes with a frown, sighs into John's hand and looks, once more, at John's face. "What about your team? They live in your pockets at least as much as my kids live in mine."

"Perry doesn't pay much mind as long as I don't piss him off too badly, and his boss won't pay attention as long as my work is good, but the rest of them aren't like that. Burkhardt is dense as a brick until he decides to solve a problem, Wang isn't an idiot, and Hill hears more than she lets on."

"Poole too." Sam can't believe they're talking about this, as though there's a realistic possibility they might be stupid enough to go through with it. "Cosmo's full of shit, but he's sharp. And Newman is good at slipping under the radar. Biggs and Henry are capable of adding two plus two, when they have a reason to direct their attention that way."

"So we don't give them a reason."

"You can't keep ignoring them forever. Eventually people will start wondering why you haven't started seeing anyone. Why you haven't settled down." Sam doesn't let himself think about whether he'll be around long enough to see it.

"No one questions that from you."

"Because they assume I'm a surly old bastard."

"They're not wrong," John quips, grinning at the flat look Sam gives him. "But then, I have a soft spot for this particular surly old bastard."

"You say that now." Sam could recite a list of men who thought they could live with him, his reticence, his foul moods, his paranoia, his inability to find the right words except to cut someone, and every one of them was proven wrong.

"What are you afraid of, Sam?"

 _What am I not afraid of?_ Sam draws a long breath but doesn't draw away, pulling out one of the many stories he’s collected over the years to nurture in the dark corners of his mind like a poisonous flower. "My old man had arrested men and women for sodomy before, a few he told me about." John goes still, but Sam doesn't let himself stop. "I still joined up, because nothing ever made sense to me the way law enforcement did. And so I told myself I'd be careful. My first year, I was all of nineteen, twenty. And I come into the locker room one morning to change for my shift, thinking it's a normal day, chatting with some of the guys coming off shift. And I find out that two cops, two cops I knew, beat an off-duty cop to death that night when they found out he was gay." The warmth of John's hand is still there, against his face, but it's not enough. "A judge let them off. Said he would have been safe if he hadn't been walking down the street flaunting his homosexuality in their faces. And you know? I found his picture, after. He looked like he could have been anyone. Like he could've been me. And a week before they killed him, he saved a little girl's life." He looks straight at John now, willing him to see. "That's what I'm afraid of. It doesn't matter what we look like, or what we do, or how many people we save. They won't save us."

"Is that a reason to spend your entire life running?" John presses close, but loose. Giving Sam space to move away, if he needs, even though he knows John doesn't want him to. "Is that a reason to never once let yourself take a risk on being happy, even for a little while?"

Sam kisses him. He's startled when John pulls back, even as the hands on his face hold him steady.

"I can't make you stop being afraid, Sam. I can't promise you we'll always be safe either. And I can't convince you that you're worth the risk to me if you're determined not to believe it." John rests his forehead against Sam's, then steps back. "I'm just asking you if you think I'm worth trying to figure out the rest."

This time, when Sam steps forward and kisses him, he puts all of his feeling into it in a way he's never been able to with his words. And when John walks backward in the direction of the bedroom, a question in his eyes, Sam follows. And this time, Sam slides into the place John makes for him and makes love steady in the knowledge that it’s where he belongs.

Sam does buy Perry's team that round at McRory's a week later. He and John bicker and playfully jibe as they always have, but carefully avoid any indication that anything has changed between them beyond making their peace, as if John won't loop back to Sam's apartment after they all go home. Newman flirts pathetically with Hill, Biggs and Henry pick an argument with Burkhardt and Wang over the Packers' odds this year while Poole eggs them on from the sidelines, and Perry grumbles something about the damn Marshals Service trying to poach his best agent. Cosmo proposes a toast to no one getting shot, winning universal groans and a few peanuts lobbed at his head.

As if by magic, a month slips by. Not perfect, but by God it’s a month. If his kids notice any difference, they don't comment, though Sam does his best to hide any sign that anything has changed. Not enough, apparently, to sneak by Walsh, who, sitting in Sam's office one day, comments out of the blue, "You've been happier lately."

"It's summer. I've been getting sun. Big difference."

Walsh hums, then shakes her head. "I don't know who it is, Sam, but I can only assume you have excellent taste."

"What makes you assume there is someone?" Sam retorts. Walsh just snorts and strolls out of his office.

Nothing much changes for Sam, at least outwardly. They still run together at six a.m. before separating to go to their own apartments. John still appears periodically to be a thorn in his side at work, and John still appears at late o'clock on any Friday he's able to drag Sam to dinner, even after a particularly impressive argument that led Newman and Poole to actually break out popcorn.

Something about that snags in his brain, but it takes a full week to dislodge it, at which point he promptly freezes in place. John runs straight into his back, dropping carrots all over the floor. "What the hell, Sam?" He crouches down to scoop up the carrots, grumbling while rinsing them, but he stops when he gets a proper look at Sam's face. "Sam?"

Sam stares at him, just long enough for John's face to morph into something like fear. "I don't think we were ever just friends."

John groans. "You couldn't have kept that to yourself?"

"Why?"

"Because now I owe Annie twenty bucks."

There's a full five seconds of silence. Then they both burst out laughing.

One month becomes two becomes three. Slowly but surely, to Sam's great relief, John finally makes friends in his own office, even his own team. Apparently, they regard his talent for returning from Deputy Gerard's office with all his limbs intact as a superpower, even more so that he meets Sam's blackest moods with nary more than an unimpressed eyebrow. It takes until an evening shooting the shit with Perry's team for Sam to figure out that John is in and out of his office and frequently on the phone because other teams like to enlist his services anytime they know they'll have to deal with Sam, until Perry got sick of loaning out one of his better agents on a semi-weekly basis. That doesn't stop him from using John to communicate with Sam when he can get away with it, of course.

"It's because he doesn't know you're a marshmallow," Cosmo informs him. Two days later, Sam sends him tramping through the mud in reward.

That doesn't do anything to change the caution with which John has to navigate his work interactions, especially once Burkhardt and Wang take it upon themselves to try to set him up with various female agents in the office. Sam finds it amusing and infuriating in turn.

"You can't deter them forever," he says.

John cracks one eye open to glare, without changing his position curled against Sam's chest like a lazy cat. "Sam. We are in bed. We are naked. We literally just fucked. Can we talk about anything other than the women my coworkers want to set me up with?"

"I've been told I have excellent timing," Sam says primly, ignoring John's muttered _Jesus Christ_.

"This has been bothering you, hasn't it?" John grumbles. "You're not this chatty unless something is bothering you or you've been stewing on it for weeks and finally worked up the nerve to share with the class."

"Sue me." He runs a hand through John's hair. "They're not going to let it go without a reason. And if they don't have a reason, they'll start questioning it."

John sighs. Sam tries not to let this particular anxiety bleed out too often from the back of his head where it chants, always, even louder when John happens to be in his vicinity at work. "I'll tell them I'm too much of a workaholic to be a good date, which is actually true."

"It also sounds like an excuse."

"Yes," John replies, in the tone that says Sam is being particularly dense, "because it is an excuse, because I can't actually tell them that I'm gay on every day ending in the letter y and by the way also sleeping with the Deputy Marshal of their nightmares." When Sam is silent, John sighs again. "What do you want me to do, Sam? Go to dinner with the women they suggest and duck out the bathroom like a bad high school first date?"

"That's one way to get rid of them."

"Even if you weren't too jealous for that to ever work, which you are, my lack of interest in anyone not male, Texan, and ornery would give me away pretty quick. And don't try to say you're not jealous--Annie Eastman will always lose you that argument." John shuffles to look up at Sam. "I'll be fine, Sam. Stop worrying about it."

He doesn't stop worrying about it, but he does let the argument go.

It doesn't help that Perry's team and Sam's team are constantly drawn into each other's business as the Gambino cases wear on. They're religiously careful, to the point John is almost annoyed with Sam's paranoia, but every once in a while Sam notices Hill with a thoughtful look on her face, or Wang looking like he's rotating a problem in his head the few times he runs into Sam and John pouring over files on their own. Cosmo has noticed the change, if only because Sam is largely sleeping better, and ribs Sam about it just enough that Sam knows he's relieved, though it doesn't relieve Sam to think Cosmo might be wondering what changed. He growls and badgers his kids as ever, always aware they may not believe him.

Nor does it help that the Gambino cases bring them into perpetual proximity to Kelly and Rosetti, who are indeed up to their necks in the muck of it. Worse, Kelly seems to have made it his personal mission to get under Sam's skin, as if he holds Sam personally responsible for the clusterfuck that unfolded with Judge O'Connor and the shredding Walsh gave him for it. That, Sam could live with, except that Kelly also seems to blame John, and takes no small amount of pleasure in making John's life hell.

It's never as obvious as Sam thinks it will be. It's in the little things. Files that take slightly too long to make it to John. Delayed or rescheduled phone calls. A stray remark that can be interpreted just so, if one were to look for it. Kelly is a bully, Sam realizes, but not necessarily a stupid one. 

The volume of cases and the messiness also means that John has to hand over contact information for his former office, having already called with clear instructions about what they can and cannot pass on to CPD. Every once in a while, Kelly and Rosetti happen to get on the phone with New York while sharing notes with the FBI and Marshals Service, because Judge O'Connor is still smack in the middle of it and they have a grab bag of witnesses to safeguard. If asked, Sam couldn't say why. But something about Kelly, every time he gets on the phone with New York, puts Sam's teeth on edge.

Kelly is waiting for something, but Sam doesn't know what.

Three months become four. One of the trials is well underway, another due to pick up speed, another to start in two months. They're all exhausted, frayed, worsened by the fact that Kelly and Rosetti's presence drives Sam's paranoia into overdrive.

"You're going to give yourself a heart attack," John tells him one late night, after Kelly has just left and Sam stares after him like he expects Kelly to leap out at any moment. "We're being as careful as we can."

As careful as they can, given that they're all spending entirely too long in each other's business. Any moment alone can be interrupted and often is, and while Sam is constantly listening, constantly careful, the claustrophobic press of people around him while John is beside him means that he's once more staring at the ceiling, turning over cases and interactions in his head until dawn laughs in his ear, or shuffling through recipes he hasn’t tried in years at ungodly hours of night while he mentally shuffles and reshuffles details, scrubbing the kitchen and bequeathing the results to Mrs. Rosen in the mornings with the guilty sensation of hiding evidence. He doesn't let himself relax until they're in one of their apartments, steady in the knowledge that they're alone and won't be disturbed, but Sam is also tired, and he can't account for every surprise.

Like Burkhardt, finding them standing just a bit too close at the coffee machine. Like Poole, watching over drinks after one horrifically long night as Sam murmurs to John. Like Hill, who John didn't notice was still there when he came to fetch Sam for dinner. Like Newman, stumbling into the tail end of a whispered argument that immediately cuts off when they see him. Like Perry, appearing one morning to find John at Sam's elbow in his office, closer and more animated than he needs to be while talking Sam through the mess of papers in front of them.

Cosmo, for his part, takes to loudly making his approach known anytime he wanders in Sam's direction and promptly talking Sam's ear off without missing a beat, which is, Sam supposes, entirely in character. Henry bitches that Cosmo's going to give him migraines. Poole reaches into her desk for the extra-strength Tylenol that was already there and tells him to can it.

On a night six months in, when Sam does manage to sleep for a few hours, he's jolted awake to see the clock reading 3:41 a.m. and John still asleep on top of him, just starting to stir with the blare of the telephone. He pauses just long enough to hush John, then carefully climbs out from under him, grabbing the phone and getting as far out of the bedroom as the cord will allow.

When he comes back to return the phone to its hook John blinks to something vaguely awake, squinting in the dark at where Sam moves through the room. "Sam?"

"Go back to sleep," Sam murmurs, rooting through his closet for clean clothes.

"What are you doing?"

"We got a runner." Sam hits his elbow on the dresser but manages to get his clothes on, pressing a kiss to John's forehead. "I'll see you later."

"Be safe," John says. Sam lingers, just long enough to assure himself John is ensconced in sleep again, safe in Sam's apartment where no fugitive will come for him, and slips out.

The fugitive is a mean piece of work who acquires a gun as soon as he runs, which he has no qualms about firing into the air as soon as he knows the marshals are coming. And when Sam steps in his way to keep him talking while his kids close in, barking at him to keep his eye on Sam when he darts to Cosmo, the fugitive shoots him in the shoulder at the same moment Sam shoots him in the leg.

And because that's how Sam's luck works, Perry's team and CPS are already there when they get back to the office at 11 a.m., to discuss moving a Gambino witness in preparation for testimony. Sam waves his kids to occupy them while he goes to his office for a clean shirt, but of course John notices.

"What happened?" Sam knows by the way John fixes on the blood on his shoulder that he already knows, giving John a look that says not to push it, not here.

"Trigger-happy sonofabitch. Sam got shot," Cosmo supplies. Traitor.

"I'm fine," Sam says at the same moment.

"When we get shot, we are not fine," Newman says, reciting Sam's words back to him complete with a deliberately atrocious Texas accent. "When we get shot, we got to the hospital."

"Reports," Sam sings back at him, not looking over his shoulder, "And I already got checked by the EMTs. I don't need to go to the hospital."

"Yes you do." This from Poole, tucking her gun into her desk. "That has to get cleaned and X-rayed and stitched."

"It got patched on the scene." Sam starts to walk toward his office, John right on his heels. "I'll get it checked after the meeting."

"And why is it," John says, his tone challenging Sam to stop walking away and explain to his face, "that you got shot and none of your kids did?"

"Sam found him first and distracted him." This from Biggs, from where he's checking the state of his coffee mug.

Sam shakes his head and plows forward, almost to his office. "He was going to shoot my kids," he murmurs, only for John.

"And has it never once occurred to you," John steps in Sam's path, blocking his escape to his office with cold fury plain on his face, "that there are people around you who would be upset to see you deliberately get hurt on their behalf?"

It's a familiar argument, one they've had several times over the past several months every time Sam puts himself in the way of harm before his kids get the chance. He gives John a look, _not here, not now_ , all too aware of Perry's team and his kids and Kelly and Rosetti too close. John shakes his head and marches away to the break room, muttering something colorful. Sam ducks into his office for a clean shirt, all too aware of eyes at his back.

When he emerges, Kelly and Rosetti are watching him. He snarls at them to get the damn meeting moving, that he gets cranky when he gets shot and they won't like that, but it doesn't shake the look off of Kelly's face.

John doesn't appear in Sam's apartment that night, or the night after, though he takes pity on Sam when he appears on John's doorstep with gingerbread. "Would it kill you to apologize like a normal person?" he grouses, but he still drags Sam in, checks his shoulder, and hugs him hard on his good side.

The witness transfer the following week is a mess of moving pieces, made worse by the inclusion of Kelly and Rosetti in the occasion. Specifically, Kelly's pettiness. Because not all of the cases being brought against the Gambino crime family are federal, some of the witnesses are in police protection, not the Marshals Service. And while Sam can offer the cooperation of his office, he can't guarantee CPD's, which repeatedly runs them into roadblocks given that the FBI is still coordinating the cases.

Still, Kelly and Rosetti are organized crime detectives, and every once in a blue moon they're even halfway decent ones. The Gambino family has been a thorn in their sides for years. That, Sam hopes through petty delays and increasingly sharp remarks, ought to be enough to keep them tolerably in check.

He's proven wrong one morning when, distracted with the details of a fugitive case, he looks up to an outraged shout of, "What the _fuck_ are these clowns doing?" And who should be on TV but Kelly and Rosetti, giving a press conference with their precinct captain about the upcoming trial and the CPD's hopes that the witnesses will be instrumental in taking down the Gambino arm in Chicago. A press conference Perry had explicitly forbidden them from giving, for fear of a leak and their witness's safety. Witnesses John has been working with for weeks.

Within thirty seconds, his phone rings--Perry. "You seeing this shit?" he snaps into the phone, considering how quickly he can reach through the screen and strangle Kelly into silence.

"With my own two eyes." Sam can feel Perry's fury from the other side of Chicago. "I don't care what you have to do or who you have to trample, Gerard. Get me my goddamn witnesses."

"They're not going to like this," Sam warns, though he can already tell Perry doesn't care. To be fair, Sam doesn't either.

"I'm sending my kids to meet you at the precinct. We're transferring them today. Don't call me again until it’s done." The phone slams in Sam's ear, as Sam slams it down in turn.

"Let's go, people!" he shouts. His kids fly into motion around him.

As promised, Perry's kids are already there to meet them. "I'm going to kill them," Cosmo mutters.

"Not if I get there first," John retorts.

When a beat cop tries to slow them down, Sam smiles at him with the promise that this time, he _will_ eat someone alive. "Hi," he says with enough fake cheer to bludgeon, "where's your boss?" The beat cop points and flees. Clever kid. "Poole, take Hill and get the paperwork squared. Biggs, Wang, figure out where the hell they've got them. Burkhardt and Henry, get us a damn safe house. Cosmo, Royce, with me."

"Where are you going?" Henry calls.

"To visit the captain."

They interrupt Kelly and Rosetti in the captain's office. John's smile is that of a hungry wildcat. "Morning, Captain," he says, with a paper-thin veneer of good cheer. "Saw the press conference. Since you boys are so busy chatting with reporters, can I have my witnesses back?"

"I'm sorry?" the captain stands, glancing between John and Sam with his hackles already raising. "They're in our custody for the transfer in two days, Agent Royce."

"I'm sorry, Captain, I shouldn't have phrased that as a question," John replies, leaning casual-like against the wall of the captain's office. "The witnesses are being remanded into our custody. Today."

"On whose authority?" Rosetti, ever the bright one, is just starting to catch on.

"Mine." Three gazes snap to Sam. "The Marshals Service will be taking over custody of the witnesses, per the request of Agent Perry. My team will oversee the transfer.”

"Deputy Gerard." Captain Roberts, Sam thinks, has a thoroughly punchable face.

"Captain Roberts," Sam returns. "The transfer has already been signed and stamped by Agent Perry. We're concerned about the safety of the witnesses, given the ongoing trials."

"As are we, Deputy."

"And yet, this morning's press conference," Sam says pleasantly, "which Agent Perry explicitly asked you not to do for fear that it would alert the mob of a chance to take out a hit on the witnesses and halt testimony." He takes the forms Cosmo holds out and sets them in front of Roberts, tapping a nail on the signature line. "And since you boys are so busy chatting with reporters, we'll be taking those witnesses off your hands. For safekeeping, you understand."

Roberts stares. Sam stares back.

"We can do this the easy way, sir, or we can do this the hard way." Sam sets his hands on the desk, leaning just enough into the captain's space. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to see some mobsters rot in prison forever." He reaches into the pen cup at the corner of the captain's desk and tosses one at random. "Your choice, Captain."

Roberts glares at Sam, picks up the pen, and signs.

John nods and snatches the papers off Roberts' desk. "Pleasure doing business, gentlemen."

Poole and Hill jog up to them as they leave, paperwork in hand. "We got 'em, Sam."

"Good girl," he replies, scanning the papers as they walk.

"It was mostly Hill," Poole says, with no small amount of pride.

Sam laughs and grins at Hill. "We'll make a menace of you yet." She beams.

Walsh is _livid_.

"You want to explain what just happened, Gerard?" she says, hauling him into her office and slamming the door. "Because I thought I just got a call from Captain Roberts of the Chicago police saying you've taken custody of their Gambino witnesses."

"That about covers it," Sam replies.

"That's it?" Walsh drops into her desk chair with a glare at Sam that could crack stone. "Because you're going to have to do a damn sight better than that, Sam."

"You saw the press conference this morning."

"Yeah, I did. That's not our concern."

"Perry believed CPD endangered the witnesses by giving a press conference. He asked for an assist and for the witnesses to be transferred into the custody of the Marshals Service until their trial."

"So you marched into their precinct and cleaned out their cabinets?"

"Their safe house, actually."

"You are tiptoeing on thin ice, Gerard, do not try to be funny with me."

"I'm not." Sam tosses the paperwork on her desk. "CPD willingly signed them over to the Marshals. Perry's kids oversaw. We're getting them set up in a safe house now."

"Get out of my office so I can mop up after you," Walsh snaps, snatching her phone off the hook. "And so help me God, Sam, if anything happens to those witnesses in our custody, it's your ass in front of the firing squad, not mine."

"Understood." Sam gets out.

It takes the rest of the day and entirely too many phone calls, but they do get the witnesses squared away in a fresh safe house in Marshals custody. A call comes from Perry as they finish--bring both teams back to the Marshals office, to put a bow on it. By the time they stroll back, even Hill is cracking jokes with Cosmo.

"Gerard. Royce." Perry meets them at the desks, his face grim. "Walsh needs both of you in her office."

Sam snorts, shedding his jacket. "She already tore into me for this morning's performance. You're welcome, by the way."

"So I heard," Perry mutters. His grim look doesn't go away as he waves the rest of the kids from following. "Just Gerard and Royce. The rest of you finish cleaning this up. We'll be out shortly."

Perry is nervous, Sam thinks, though he can't quite tell about what. John glances at him, mouths a question. Sam shrugs, trailing after Perry.

They walk through Walsh's office door to find she's not alone--Captain Roberts, Kelly and Rosetti are all spread throughout the room, looking up at Sam and John's arrival. So, too, does a man in a suit and glasses, perched on a chair in the corner. It takes Sam a moment to recognize him as Supervisory Special Agent Haslett, the head of the Chicago field office.

He forces a smile on his face. "You didn't tell me we were having a party. I'm hurt."

"Close the door, Perry." Sam expected Walsh's face to be angry, but it isn't. Her lips are pressed in a thin line, her posture subdued. It's as close as Walsh comes to looking worried.

"If this is about your witnesses, boys," John says, an equally forced grin on his face, "I'm sorry to say we've already taken care of them."

"Royce." Perry is quiet, curled into his chair.

"Have a seat, Sam." Walsh point's to a chair at the other side of her office.

"Is there a problem, ma'am?"

"Sam." Her eyes are grim too, and Sam has the clear thought that something is horribly wrong. "Sit. Please."

He sits.

"I'll stand, thanks." John leans against the wall just behind Sam's shoulder, a column of support at Sam’s back even though he can't reach out and touch him.

"Suit yourself, Agent Royce," Walsh sighs. Then her gaze fixes on Kelly and Rosetti. "You gathered us all here, detectives. Do you mind telling us what this is all about?”

“The Gambino witnesses this morning, ma’am,” Kelly says.

"We've already taken care of the witnesses." Sam's voice is a blade dangling between him and Kelly. "Captain Roberts approved the transfer."

"Was dragged into signing the transfer," Rosetti pipes in.

"As I recall, the captain has functioning free will and a perfectly good signing hand," Sam replies. Perry snorts in the corner, despite himself.

"And as I recall," John hums from behind Sam's shoulder, "you boys gave a press conference this morning after Agent Perry explicitly asked you not to, for fear of an attempted reprisal against the witnesses. Deputy Gerard simply stepped in upon request to ensure they remain safe to give testimony."

"Witnesses that weren't federal." Kelly taps one stubby finger against his chair. "They were never within Deputy Gerard's power to demand."

"That was my call, Tom," Perry says to Haslet, low and urgent. "You want to heads to roll, roll mine. Gerard just did what I asked."

"Oh don't worry, heads will roll," Haslett snaps, then takes off his glasses to pinch his nose. "Jesus, Charlie."

"Be that as it may," everyone's eyes return to Walsh, at the head of the room, "the transfer was willingly signed over by Chicago PD. Deputy Marshal Gerard did handle this appropriately, regardless of the circumstances initiating the transfer," a glare at Sam and Perry, "and everything that happened after that signover was in keeping with his duties."

"It's not just about the witnesses, ma'am." Kelly doesn't look anywhere near defeated enough. There's a mean angle of triumph in his shoulders. "It's about the appropriateness of Deputy Gerard's judgment."

"I beg your pardon, Detective?"

"Deputy Gerard's judgment, ma'am," Rosetti adds. "With regards to the Gambino cases. And Special Agent Royce."

Sam's stomach drops.

Haslett frowns, looking between them. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"Has it never occurred to you to wonder," Kelly says, as though guiding schoolchildren through an obvious lesson, "why Deputy Gerard never married?"

"I'm not sure how things are run in your precinct, Detective," Walsh's eyes flash like lightning made to smite men to dust, "but my deputies' personal lives are neither my business nor my concern."

"Unless their personal lives could reflect negatively on their offices or their personal choices may reflect poorly on their fitness to make decisions on behalf of the federal government in sensitive matters." Kelly looks at Sam as a lion at a rabbit.

"And what decisions would those be?" John snaps from behind Sam's shoulder. _Stop talking_ , Sam prays, _don't let them come for you_. But of course, John isn't finished. "As I understand it, Deputy Gerard is one of the best at his job." There's a cruel spark of glee in Kelly's eyes when he turns to John.

"Ask Agent Royce why he left New York. Ask him about his old partner," Kelly sneers on the last word. "Agent--Ward, was it?"

Sam can all but hear the blood draining out of John's face as if it's pooling on the floor in front of him.

"Agent Royce came to me on a commendation from his former boss after the successful capture of a man who murdered two FBI agents." Perry's voice is cool enough to freeze the Sahara solid.

"That's why he came to Chicago," Rosetti replies easily, as if they'd expected it, "but it's not why he left New York." His fish eyes settle on John. "Sheridan killed Ward. That's why Royce was so eager to capture Sheridan."

"Mark Sheridan killed two good agents, Detective Rosetti." Haslett's glance flutters between them to Perry and back again.

"Did more than that, to hear scuttlebutt from New York," Kelly purrs. "To hear it from New York, Royce needed to clean up his mess. Sheridan was about to out him and Ward as lovers. He needed to bail out of New York before the mess could catch up."

"And what are you suggesting that has to do with Deputy Gerard?" Walsh is quiet, and it does Sam no good.

"You never thought it was odd?" Kelly stares dead at Sam. "How Royce just integrated himself here? With Gerard, who gets along with no one? And how, somehow, Gerard is willing to bend over backward to help out Perry's team? _After_ Royce got there, of course."

"We are all working jointly to ensure the Gambino trials go off without a hitch." It's Walsh's prosecutor voice, but Kelly just snorts.

"Since when is Sam Gerard anyone's errand boy? Perry just calls and Gerard is willing to drop everything and get those witnesses for him? Royce's witnesses?"

"We have just as much of a vested interest in protecting those witnesses as CPD." Walsh's voice goes up, ringing in Sam's head. _It'll be your ass in front of the firing squad_. “I don’t know what you’re implying, Detective, but I suggest you get to the point.”

Kelly leans forward, a stance Sam knows he must use in interrogation. He's reveling in this, the bastard. "How would it look for the FBI or the Marshals if questions were raised during the trial about Deputy Gerard stepping outside his authority to assist the FBI? To assist Agent Royce? Especially if the Gambino attorneys were to look into the agents deeply involved in the case, of which Agent Royce is one, and discover concerning rumors about his relationship with his former partner?" He looks at Sam, and a familiar black chill rises in Sam's veins. "How would it look for the Marshals Service," Kelly continues, low and soft and slowly twisting the knife, "if the Gambino attorneys were to ask questions about Deputy Gerard, a bachelor of decades, who gets along with no one, suddenly willing to step outside his authority to remand witnesses Royce has worked with closely, when troubling rumors of inappropriate relations with Agent Royce's former partner chased him out of New York? After they happened to meet on a hunt for the man who murdered Royce's alleged lover, no less?"

There's a sudden commotion outside Walsh's office. The door bursts open and in pour Sam's kids, Perry's kids on their heels, in a wave of shouting.

"All of you _get out_ ," Walsh snaps, standing as if she means to chase them.

"No," Haslett says. "They can stay."

"Agent Haslett--

"Marshal Walsh," Haslett returns evenly. "We seem to be hearing accusations. I'd like to hear if they're justified."

"There's no reason to turn this into a humiliation."

"And it won't if the good detectives' accusations are baseless."

"And what about Gerard and Royce's words?"

Haslett turns to them for the first time. "Gerard?"

Sam knows he needs to lie. Knows he needs to say something, _anything_ , to protect John. Knows that every passing second of silence makes it worse. And yet, he can't make his tongue move, can’t breathe with the eyes of everyone in the room on him while he stares back as if from the bottom of the ocean, slowly drowning under the beating thought that this is the moment that he loses everything, that John realizes he was wrong, that John will be gone before Sam found the words to say what he's kept clutched to his chest since the night he lay staring at the ceiling after the Hilton & Towers.

"Royce?"

He hears a helpless noise in John's throat, but no words come. After a beat, Haslett looks away.

"Well, there you are. Since we have yet to hear from Gerard and Royce, I suppose that leaves their teams." Every word sinks into Sam like a nail hammered home.

"Sammy, what's going on?" Cosmo says, but it's Walsh who answers.

"Detectives Kelly and Rosetti have raised some troubling allegations regarding inappropriate conduct between Deputy Gerard and Special Agent Royce." Walsh's voice is stiff as she settles against her desk. "We need to know if there's any reason to believe those allegations may be true."

"The hell does that mean?" Biggs says, loud and incredulous and echoing in Sam's ears. _Don't ask, Bobby, please_ , Sam prays, but of course, Biggs can't hear him. "Inappropriate conduct?"

"An inappropriate relationship between Deputy Marshal Gerard and Special Agent Royce beyond the limits of professionalism," Haslett says. "A personal relationship, which would reflect poorly on their positions and duties."

"He's asking if your boss and your boy are queer." Kelly spits the word like dirt.

"You got some kind of nerve," Cosmo hisses. "The hell is your problem, coming in here and talking like that?"

"Deputy Renfro, please," Haslett holds up a hand, placating. "There's no need to be crass, Detective Kelly." He shifts in his seat, folding his hands in front of him. "The detectives raised allegations about an inappropriate personal relationship between Deputy Gerard and Special Agent Royce, which led Deputy Gerard to step beyond the boundaries of his authority to assist Agent Royce in a manner which would reflect negatively on the Bureau and the Marshals Service and may give reason to cast doubt on the validity of their judgment in connection to the Gambino trials. We need to know if there's any reason to believe these allegations are true."

Sam's kids look to Walsh. "We're asking for the truth," she says, staring each of them down in turn. "Nothing more or less."

"Sam?" Poole's voice skips across him like a stone on water.

Sam closes his eyes so he doesn't have to see their faces, so they can't see his heart cracking, holds himself still enough to keep the pieces of him from flying apart.

There are several torturous moments of silence, stretching together like molasses. Sam considers whether it would be easier, standing in front of Kelly if Kelly's gun was raised. _Please, don't stretch this out_ , he thinks. A gun, at least, has a trigger. The promise of swiftness.

From the back of the room, there's a murmur. "No, sir."

"I'm sorry, Agent Hill?"

"No sir."

"No what, Agent Hill?"

"No, sir, it's not true." Hill takes a long breath and plows on, stronger this time. "We've worked with Deputy Gerard and his team for almost a year on and off, sir. And I've never once seen Deputy Gerard be anything other than professional, and certainly no indication of the kind of inappropriate relationship the detectives are implying."

"Gerard busts Royce's ass at least as much as ours," Wang chimes in. "Sometimes more, when Royce is being stupid."

"Sam makes judgment calls as Deputy Marshal." Poole's voice is cool and firm as marble. "The case always comes before anything else."

Biggs snorts. "We've been living under each other's desks for months with these Gambino cases. You really think we wouldn't have noticed if Sam and Royce were in some secret relationship like freaking soap opera heroines?"

"We are paid to notice these things, you know," Henry adds.

"Stupidest damn thing I've heard all year," Biggs mutters, followed by a stomp and a scuffle.

"I mean, Sam takes care of Royce," Newman says slowly, turning the words on his tongue, "but he takes care of all of us, doesn't he? Perry's team too, when he can. That's just Sam."

"And anyone who thinks Royce's work is dirty didn't even look in the same building as the files." Burkhardt sounds like he's wearing his puppy-with-a-holy-commitment-to-justice face. "Royce will lay into us as soon as look at us if we fuck up. We're a better team because of him."

Sam opens his eyes. His kids stare back at him, fierce, determined.

"Alright, enough," Walsh says, waving her hands in a clear shooing gesture. "Out, the lot of you. You can wait for Royce and Gerard outside."

They all shuffle in place. Except for Cosmo, who stands tall and stares down Walsh.

"I said out, Renfro," Walsh says, a hint of reprimand in her voice.

"No," Cosmo snaps back, looking between Walsh, Haslett, and Sam like he can't believe what's in front of him. "This is bullshit, Walsh, and you know it."

"Enough, Renfro."

" _No_ ," Cosmo snaps back, louder this time. "We got no reason to entertain this crap about Sam and Royce because these worthless shits wet the bed and got embarrassed for it." The look he shoots Kelly and Royce says he'd prefer to shoot them with lead. "Sam's the best damn deputy in this entire state. And he works well with Royce. Last I checked, that's not a crime. So I don't know why the hell we're all standing here talking about them like they're a pair of murderers on trial," his voice raises into a shout, "when every person in this room with two firing brain cells knows they haven't done a damn thing wrong!"

" _Renfro!_ " Even Kelly flinches at the crack of Walsh's voice. Cosmo goes silent but stubbornly uncowed. "I said that's enough."

"Ma'am--"

"Get out of my office, Renfro." Walsh's glare sweeps to all of the kids, still staring back at her in various stages of defiance. "All of you. We have business to finish here with Gerard and Royce. You can wait for them outside."

They shuffle, awkwardly, to the door. Cosmo makes it to the door last, then stops and looks back at Sam. Sam doesn't look up from the floor.

" _Now_ , Renfro."

Cosmo gets out.

Walsh takes a deep breath. "Satisfied, Tom?"

"Don't lay into me, Catherine," Haslett grumbles, but his gaze on Kelly and Rosetti is calculating. "Perry?"

Perry starts in his seat. "Sir?"

"How would you characterize Agent Royce's work since joining the Chicago office?"

"Best hiring call I've made in years."

"And his judgment?"

Perry snorts, and for a moment Sam is terrified, but when Perry speaks again, his voice is fierce. "I'm offended you have to ask. Sir," he adds quickly, at Haslett's unamused gaze. "Royce is a damn pain in my ass, but I've never once had cause to question the quality of his judgment."

"Not even with regards to Deputy Gerard?"

"Especially not with regards to Deputy Gerard."

Haslett hums, turning away from Perry to look back at Kelly and Rosetti. "Well, gentlemen, there you have it. And given the strength of Agent Lamb's recommendation for Agent Royce, I am rather curious to know who in New York felt so strongly disposed to speak poorly of him. In fact," he says conversationally, "I would be simply delighted to collect those names from you, detectives, and have a word with Captain Roberts about how you see fit to spend your work hours, given that we extended the services of the New York field office for the purposes of assisting in the Gambino trials."

Sam exhales. John is safe.

Kelly seems to realize it too, because he whips to Walsh. "Ma'am."

She raises an eyebrow. "Detective."

"Marshal Walsh." She turns to Kelly and Rosetti's captain, no less frigid. "Deputy Gerard's conduct--"

"We've already spoken about Deputy Gerard's conduct. You heard it from his team--he's done nothing wrong."

"With all due respect, Marshal Walsh, Deputy Gerard's team isn't unbiased." Captain Roberts's voice is smooth and so very horribly reasonable. "Especially in this case, where their conduct following Deputy Gerard's orders may be in question."

They stare at each other. _Not my kids,_ Sam prays. _Never my kids_.

"I resent the implication that my deputies may be lying, Captain." Walsh stares him dead in the face like she's contemplating, clinically speaking, what he would look like on a mortuary slab.

"Be that as it may, ma'am," the captain says, his hands up in a white flag gesture, "in light of recent events, perhaps it would be appropriate--

"Appropriate?" Walsh's voice is like a whip clean across Captain Roberts's face. "I find it deplorable that you think it appropriate to humiliate Deputy Gerard in front of his colleagues."

"Appropriate," the captain bears on, "to pursue all possible avenues in this instance. Given the delicacy of the Gambino trials, we cannot afford any possibility that the circumstances surrounding the case may impact the outcome of the trials."

"As far as I'm concerned, Captain, any further consideration of this matter regarding Deputy Gerard is an internal matter for the Marshals Service. With all due respect, sir, I fail to understand why you think it _appropriate_ ," Roberts flinches, ever so slightly, "to dictate how I run my own office." Walsh regards him down her nose like a cat inspecting a canary. "And I believe we may have words, Captain, about why you and your detectives thought it _appropriate_ to to waste my office's time, given how busy all of us are with the Gambino cases you yourself seem so concerned about. Now if everyone would kindly get out of my office," Walsh strides to her desk to drop into her chair like the queen herself, "I need a word with Deputy Gerard. Close the door behind you. I believe security can help you find your way out of the building, detectives, Captain. I'll be in touch."

Sam doesn't look up as people file out of the room.

There's a beat, then Walsh looks behind Sam. "You too, Royce." There's a shuffle at Sam's back.

They sit in silence once the door closes. Then Walsh sighs. "I'm sorry to ask this, Sam. But I need to hear it from you if what Kelly and Rosetti said is true." When he stares at her, she adds, "About you and Royce being together romantically."

Sam can't quite make himself breathe, much less speak.

That, apparently, is answer enough for Walsh. "How long?" When he doesn't answer, she repeats it with a bit more force. "Sam. How long?"

"Six months," Sam says. His own voice is small and quiet.

Walsh, of course, can see right through him. "I've never known you to rush into anything in almost two decades of working for me. So how did this start, because you can't tell me it just happened."

"We ran into each other, on a shared case. Got to be friends." He shrugs, though he's not sure how. "One thing led to another."

"When?" When Sam doesn't reply, Walsh presses harder. "The Collins case?" Sam's eyes flick across the floor, then back. "Jesus, Sam."

"I understand it reflects poorly on my judgment and the Marshals." His voice rings hollow in his own ears. "And I'll take responsibility for it."

"Stop that." He hears Walsh shifting and looks up to find she's crossed in front of her desk to lean into it. When he meets her gaze, Walsh shakes her head, huffing a breath. "How many times have I told you not to bury yourself a grave too deep for me to dig you out of?"

"Almost weekly."

At that, Walsh chortles. "Stop looking like I've killed your cat, Sam. I'm not going to fire you, and I'm not going to open an investigation. You haven't done anything wrong. You pissed off CPD, but you did it because Perry asked you to protect the Gambino witnesses. That’s on Perry’s head and has nothing to do with Royce. As far as I'm concerned, Kelly and Rosetti's bullshit ends here." Her face falls somber, glancing out the office window to where Kelly and Rosetti have exited. "But I need you to understand that I may not always be able to protect you from all of the consequences of this."

"I understand." He does, though it aches in his bones. "I wouldn't ask you to. I don't need anyone's neck on the line to protect me from my mistakes."

The look Walsh gives him is one of pure exasperation. "It was never about need, Sam. We take care of our own. I thought you already knew that." Her face softens a bit, the closest thing to a kind look she's given him in a while. "Keep your chin up. And don't you dare let them see you down." She nods to the door, standing from her desk. "And for what it's worth? It's been good to see you happy."

He's caught by Cosmo the second he steps out of Walsh's office and dragged directly to his own, where his kids immediately mob him. He jumps about a mile when Cosmo and Noah hug him, but they don't let go.

"You alright, Sammy?" Cosmo asks.

Sam just stares at them, his brain clouded with radio static.

"Give him some air, boys," Poole says, gently tugging Sam free. "He's allergic to all the open feelings."

"I..." they all stand still, waiting. Sam swallows and tries again. "What...?"

Biggs laughs. "What, you think we didn't know?"

"You're not as subtle as you think, Sam," Cosmo says, waving his hands in front of him when Sam looks at him disbelieving. "I mean, you were really subtle, actually. But, well." He shrugs, gestures to the lot of them. Grins. "You were so much happier."

"And we are trained to string details together," Poole adds.

Sam steps back, trying to take air into his lungs. "I don't understand."

Cosmo hugs Sam again, harder this time. Sam stiffens, but Cosmo doesn't let go until Sam finally relaxes. He steps back and rolls his eyes fondly at Sam's expression like they're talking about anything but Sam being dead terrified of his own kids. "You're an idiot, Sammy," Cosmo says, clapping him hard on the shoulder.

"We've got your back, Sam, always," Poole says, with the same quiet determination she uses in any hunt and a look in her eye like she wants to shoot Kelly and Rosetti for making Sam doubt it.

Sam glances at Biggs and Henry, still keeping his face controlled. Biggs breaks into an easy grin. "Hell, boss, I don't get it, but you're still our Big Dog."

"Idiot," Henry mutters, elbowing Biggs hard and ignoring his angry yelp. When he looks at Sam, it's with an expression of patient exasperation. "What, you didn't think you'd be rid of us that easy, did you?"

Noah just goes to hug him again. Sam lets him for all of two seconds before shaking him off with a growl. "Alright, get back to your jobs." Because he has a reputation, dammit, and they're not going to see him crack. It doesn't matter that they all know he's full of shit.

There's a rap on Sam's door frame and a soft, "Am I interrupting?" Sam turns from his kids to see John, still pale and dazed but smiling at Sam, leaning against Sam's door.

Sam stops breathing. Then he reaches, catches the front of John's shirt, and pulls, wrapping his arms around John and holding on for dear life, not daring to inhale until he can tuck his nose against John's hair, like he can breathe the smell straight into his memory in case this is his last chance.

His kids file out and make a show of being busy directly in front of Sam's office door, blocking John and Sam from view. Newman, the moron, is even whistling. Beyond them, John's team is entirely too busy not to be eavesdropping, broadsiding and redirecting anyone who loops in the vicinity of Sam's office.

"I knew that first night, after the shooter at the Hilton. I knew I was all in. So I ran," Sam breathes into John's hair, where he doesn't have to see John's face and he can say it. "I thought I could live with it, if it was just mine to keep. But we were sitting there and all I could think was I wouldn't get a chance to tell you and you would leave thinking I didn't care, that I never cared as much as you did. And I needed you to know before you left."

John is silent. Somehow, Sam's heart thuds faster. "Sam," he says from where he's crushed against Sam's chest, carefully disentangling himself. Sam closes his eyes, makes himself breathe, braces himself.

"Sam. Look at me."

He does. John looks somehow worse than he did in Tennessee, after Thomas Abbott, even that night in Sam's kitchen after the shooter. But his old oak eyes are bright and warm and alive as spring.

"I know," John says softly, just for Sam to hear. "And you're not getting rid of me anytime soon if I have anything to say about it." John grins like the sunrise, that impish spark lighting up his face. "Oh, and I love you too. You idiot."

Cosmo snorts outside Sam's door. They'll be fine. They'll all be just fine.


End file.
